Hunting for Something Better
by cane-jian
Summary: So, I'm trapped in the world of hunter x hunter. That's bad. With a watch counting down "until you meet Meruem", on my left wrist. That's worse. And if that wasn't enough, I keep running into characters form various other series . . . actually, that's as much a pro as a con. Oh well. Lets see if this crazy world can turn me into something other than a lazy nerd, shall we? SI/OC
1. Snakes and Moles

**AN: I started watching hunter X hunter 2011 while writing OK? Good. Now shut up.**

* * *

January fourth: Russet

Dolle harbor was a nice enough town, small, lots of friendly people, ect. The only problem I could see was circumstantial. That being, with the number of hunter wannabes passing through, the prices for food and survival equipment had _quintupled_. I mean, sure, that damned R.O.B. Had left me more than enough money for me to afford it, in fact I could probably buy the whole supermarket without the number of digits going down, but it was still a lot of money!

Now before we continue, I feel it would be best for me to introduce myself. My name is . . . classified.

Oh come on, you thought I'd actually tell you? Ha! No way. Besides, I'm in a world were psychological powers are the main weapon of . . . well, anyone of note, meaning the saying "names have power" is now literal.

So, I go by an alias. Russet Roulette. Russet, because it's my eye colour, and Roulette because I have a tendency to let my choices be decided by chance, flipping a coin, roiling a dice, ect. And roulette is a gambling game. That and the whole thing sounds cool.

I am a white male, a little under six feet tall. I have curly, golden brown, shoulder length hair, that I am a little vain about. I was wearing glasses, a maroon turtle-neck shirt(made of rather thin material) and black dress pants. I had simple white running shoes over black, knee height socks.

Around my waist I had my black, waterproof, spring jacket, covering the back of my legs down to the knees like a half-skirt. On my back, a oversized backpack, with a collapsible mountain bike and a metal cylinder is attacked to the back.

I am rather thin, with little visible muscle. Considering my family, I'm confident I could build some noteworthy muscle, but I am a rather lazy person, who only began to seriously train when I found myself in this world, back in May. Now, I've been training for eight months, and it is January. The fact that I heal faster, and thus build muscle, faster here do to anime logic also helps.

"What a pain." I groaned aloud as I walked down the street, adjusting my bronze, circular glasses, (Which had often caused my younger sister to jokingly call me Harry Potter). I was looking for some sign of the hunters exam, which technically started in three days.

By asking the locals, I found that people had been showing up for _weeks_ before arrival, about two days ago. I have been . . . running surveillance(Read: wandering around aimlessly hoping for luck) since then.

Now before you ask, I _had_ watched the show, but I haven't read the manga, or watched the older anime, so I don't know what continuity I'm in, assuming their are any differences early on.

A good moto for things like this is "hope for the best, prepare for the worst." So, I was going in acting like everything I already knew was wrong in the first place, and done my best to be ready for anything.

Of course, I wasn't going to ignore what I remembered, so I have placed tracking devices I had bought from a rather shady arms dealer in an even shadier city(more on that latter), on people getting on the the bus.

It was somewhat annoyng to have to use them for that, But, I did get forty, and they have an effective range of over 100 kilometres, so I guess they're worth it . . . it being the price of a sports car.

Sure enough, according to my monitor, none of the buses actually got to were I estimate Zaban city to be(the tracking devises show were they are relative to your own position, so it wasn't exact). Thus, I was trekking through the port town, trying to find a path to the hunter exam. After all, magical creatures or no, the Kiriko couple can't be the only way to the exam . . . can they? That would require that each of them fly well over a hundred examiners to the city over sixty kilometres away!

Of course, if I remember correctly, returning examines get a free pass there but still that couldn't be . . . I suppose I'm bothering you with all of my paranoid thinking!

If I don't find anything my tomorrow I'll just head for the big tree. Hopefully I can pass whatever the test is. If its the same old kidnapping bit Gon faced, I'm in trouble. Theirs no way I could run down a Kiriko . . .

* * *

January fifth: Russet

Sitting in the middle of the road, was a man in robes, playing the flute. Now, considering the shear number of colourful individuals I have passed by in the passed two days, I would have normally just walked passed him. however the army of snakes slithering around him were taking up the whole road, preventing my passage. What, I didn't mention the snakes? Oops.

"Ahem!" I coughed, hoping that I could catch his attention. I sighed in annoyance when he didn't react. "Excuse me!" I spoke as loud as I could without outright yelling. That made him open his eyes. "Would you be so kind as to have your snakes make a path? I need to get to the other side of town and your blocking my short-cut." I explained as polity as I could in the scratchy tone of voice I had taken on in recent months.

He starred at me unblinkingly for a moment, before rising to his feet. After a moment every serpent in sight(and few who weren't) slithered towards him, up his legs, and into his robes, disappearing from sight. He turned and walked away.

 _'How did he fit what had to be twice his weight in snake under . . . I'm just going to go with "Anime Logic" and be done with it. Not that I have a right to complain, considering all things I've hidden in my back pack, and the weapons hidden under my jacket . . .'_

That little episode dealt with, I continued on my way. Yesterday evening, I had overheard about some people who looked like they were taking the exam disappearing after going down a certain back street. This wouldn't have caught my interest, if it wasn't for one thing.

One of them was describes as a girl having mint green hair and a big hat. That sounded like Ponzu, who is supposedly going to be at the exam. There's no guarantee it was her, but better safe than sorry.

After asking around about the street, I found that some people who frequented a restaurant nearby that there was an open sewer pipe down that street, that had been closed and bolted last week. Apparently a few of them hand nearly fallen down the hole because of how suddenly it was removed. Of course, the lid could have just been stolen, but who steals a man-hole lid?

Turning down another alleyway, I came upon the run down restaurant that was one of the landmarks I was working off of. Now, I go to the end of the street and turn left. The sewer pipe should be at the end of the street with the bent-in-half stop sign.

At the end of the street, was a open man-hole cover. I could see how you could fall in, the tall building here make this alley somewhat shady, so the fact that the lid isn't obvious if you aren't looking for it.

Staring down into the darkness, I reached into my oversized-back-pack and pulled out my head-lamp, setting it to the second of its four settings(candle, flashlight, searchlight, and AGH!MYEYESYOUBATARD!) and a pair of rubber coated work-gloves. Putting on the gloves, climbed down the somewhat rusty ladder, glad for the added protection.

At the bottom, I saw a sewer right of tmnt, a long maze of brick tunnels. The sewer appeared to be a bit cleaner than you'd expect, and I have no sense of smell to speak of, so I can't judge the smell, making it more pleasant that you'd expect of a sewer, but after ten minutes of wandering, I had found no signs of anyone passing through. Unless you count the fact that the cement floor is clean enough that I think it must have been swept clean in the past month. For instance, to prevent footprints . . .

Turning down the tunnel on the right, I was nearly ready to turn back. Even if there was something down here, I wasn't going to be able to find it. Not with my . . .

"They went left, the other way." The sudden voice caused my heart to skip a beat. Turning on my heel, I slipped my hand under my jacket, once again around my waist, and grabbed the handle of the revolver hidden there. Standing in front of me was the snake charmer from earlier, a snake coming out from under his collar, seemingly tasting the air.

"What?" I asked him, fighting down my raised heart rate and doing my best to keep my surprise from showing visibly. Luckily, my sister had all but desensitized me to minor surprises like that years ago, so it was rather easy to control.

In response to my question, he tipped his head in the opposite direction I was heading. "My snakes say that the scent is coming from the other way."

I looked down that direction, seeing nothing I could see to indicate that someone had passed through. But their was never any physical evidence in the first place, not that I could find, so I suppose that isn't surprising. "Ok." I said, turning the way he had indicated.

As I walked passed him, he gave me a slightly curious look. "Your going to trust me?"

"I didn't here you coming, and I doubt I could beat you in a straight fight even if I had." I responded. "So, you could have killed me, or knocked me out if it was your intention to harm me, and could force me to do whatever you wanted if you needed me to do something, as I wouldn't be able to fight back. Might as well trust you. Worst case scenario is your using me to test for traps I would have tripped anyway." I felt my explanation went all over the place, but it seemed to satisfy him, so I turned back to the tunnel and walked.

Now that I was actually searching for the snake charmers presence, I could register that he was following me, a side affect of spending six months living in a city that you could easily describe as "New Gotham" if you wanted. It was just another sign I wasn't in on earth anymore, this "presence" I seem to feel. Even now, I could tell he was roughly ten feet behind me, and a little to the left, slowly getting further away, as his stride was shorter than mine. I paused every time he got more than fifteen feet behind me, and didn't start walking again until he was withing seven feet.

While we were walking("my snakes say turn left at the next bend") I had my hand lightly wrapped around the concealed knife/lighter(Switchblade hidden in a lighter) hidden in my pocket, just in case, making sure that my grip was light enough the it wasn't obvious.

As we came to the next turn, the snake man stopped. "The trail ends here." he said.

I came to a stop as well. Thinking over his words for a second I looked around for a doorway or other such exit. Nothing. Seeing as their was no definite exit, I began stomping lightly, looking for a hollow sound. If the scent train ended here, there must be a way out from here we can't see.

After about half a minute of stomping and rapping my knuckles on the walls, I found a spot of concrete that made a different sound when I stomped. I crouched down, and saw that the cement on the edges of the bricks didn't actually connect to the other bricks. Pulling out my pocket knife(no, not the switchblade, just a normal pocket knife) I slipped the blade into the crack.

After a few seconds of wiggling around, I managed to fit my fingers under to lift the bricks, a whole three by three foot area of floor coming up, revealing a dark passageway. Looking to my companion, I asked. "You want to go first, or should I?" Rather than answering, he walked over and jumped down.

After he jumped, I counted to three and said. "You out of the way yet? I'm coming down in a second." I waited one second, then jumped down.

I huffed when I hit the bottom, and came into a role to cancel out my momentum. I'd say that was a twenty foot drop, and my legs didn't like the strain, even if they wouldn't break, as the ground was soft. Standing back up, I saw that the snake-man was already heading down the tunnel. I followed at jogging pace.

* * *

We had been walking down the dirt tunnel for over an hour now,and I was certain that we were at least a few miles beyond city limits by this point. Me and the snake charmer hadn't spoken in all that time, and that was perfectly fine with me. My mouth only had two settings, silent, and blather.

It was after this thought passed through my mind that I noticed that the light seemed to have changed. Curious, I switched off my light. Sure enough. "Hmm, theirs a light up ahead of us."

The snake charmer actually snorted, before saying, "I noticed."

At the end of the tunnel, we found a large room, with several pieces of mining equipment scattered about.

"Well, I wasn't thinking I'd get any others after that last group, but you've proved me wrong." a thick french accent spoke from above us. Said voice started the snake charmer nearly as much as me if the way he stepped back was any indication. The voice originated from a hole in the roof, from which a head was sticking out. Looking at the speaker, only one though came to mind. _'Is that Mole form Atlantis!?'_

Sure enough, there he stood, in all his chubby, dirty, unshaven, buck-toothed glory, goggles adorning his face zooming over us like a chameleon.

"I suppose I should say hello." he spoke, dropping down from the cealing. "I am Gaetan Moliére, mineral and ancient ruin hunter, and the one who will decide if you get to take, the hunter exam!" he exclaimed dramatically in his accented voice, Goggles zooming in on us, before pausing as they zoomed in on my hands, and he waddled over to me, taking a closer look. "You wash your hands to often, their is no dirt on it more that four days old." he looked at me and snarled. "I don't like you."

Yep, mole.

"And how", the snake charmer asked, "will our right to entry be determined?"

The mole-man snorted. "Well I wanted to have the test be identifying different kinds of dirt and rock from around the world, but nooooo, the chairman said that only I would be able to pass such a test," he snarled in a complaining voice, before his look turned into a smirk. "So, we will just have to play a little game of tag, instead. You, are it!" With that, he jumped straight up, back flipped, and tunnelled down into the earth with an explosion of dirt that flawlessly filled the hole in after he disappeared, all but erasing the signs of his passing.

I turned to the snake charmer. "Why do I get the feeling this is going to turn into a big game of whack-a mole?" Well, what do you know, captain deadpan can smile.

* * *

 **AN: Over 2000 words in two days. Not that impressive, but it's my all time record! Is this what its like to write while in the middle of watching the anime? If anything, it's keeping me inspired. I mean, I know i've spoiled half the series for my self before i even started, but, well lets just say I can already tell hunter x hunter is a master-piece and be done with it. Lets see if I can get another chapter out before Sunday, my other stories(as short as they are) can wait!**

 **Chapter edited on August 18th, 2018, at 11:37**


	2. Spelunking and the Good Doctor

**8:54 PM, May 8th, 2018**

 **AN: second chapter! Let's see if I can maintain my current writing speed! Also, you ever wanted to figure out the writing speed of an author so you can estimate the time till the next chapter, but have no idea when anything but the first and last chapters were posted? Well, now, I'm telling you when I wrote my authors notes!**

* * *

January Fifth: Russet

Unfortunately, I was right. Mole(I've already forgotten his real name) has been leading us on a wild goose chase throughout the literal MAZE of tunnels that I'm sure he dug by hand, popping out in front of us, just out of reach, before disappearing again. Following him was exhausting, especially with a hundred pounds of equipment on my back. Eventually me and the snake charmer split up, but we've crossed path's three times over the past . . . huh, we've passed each other three times over the same number of hours, in my watch is right.

It was about the fourth time we passed each other, that I came to a conclusion. "We need a plan." I stated the fact, the snake charmer agreeing with me, nodding his head.

Seeing his confirmation, I began to pace. "Now, what do we need? It's obvious that he's tracking us somehow, maybe even herding us considering how many time we've run into each other. How? Vibrations seems as likely as anything else, but he may just be able to sense others peoples presence, I mean, I can tell were other people are without looking, assuming I'm actually searching, why couldn't a hunter?" I shrugged for emphasis. "But seeing as we . . . "

I lunged for the dirt six feet to the left of me a split second before Mole emerged, but he ducked back down when my fingers were mere inches away from him, disappeared back down his tunnel, crackling like a maniac, the only sign that he had been their in the first place the fact that the dirt there was more moist than that around it.

I turned to the snake charmer. "Can your snakes fill out the tunnel and tell us when he's coming? We need to plan in peace."

Instead of answering, he pulled out his flute and began playing. After a few seconds of playing, what had to be several hundred pounds of snakes emerged from his robes and pooled around his feet, before spreading out into the caves around us.

"Thanks. OK, now were was I? Oh yes . . . "

* * *

January fifth: Mole

Tunnelling through the dirt was always on of his favourite tings, right up there with exploring ancient ruins and architecture. The smell, the feeling of the earth beneath his fingernails, the moist feeling in the air . . . not to mention the odd taste subterranean creature he'd stumble across.

Thus it was no surprise to any who new he even in passing, when he managed to dig a tunnel wide enough for five men to walk abroad, all the from the exam site in Zaban city to Dolle Harbor in less than a week. Then added a maze for no other reason than his own amusement. Luckily, after his original plan was shot down, the maze made a great place for his little game.

There had been a couple of close calls with the two, but he was an expert of escape after all the times that Doctor Sweet had tried to bath him for "sanitation reasons." Pha! Dirt was perfectly sanitary! He didn't understand why everyone complained about him bringing it everywhere.

Either way, there hadn't been a chance to jump them in any way recently, the older one had spread his disgusting serpents all around him, and the younger one seemed satisfied to follow him around at a sedated pace since then. Of course, he had been shuffling about for a little bit, but from what he had overheard, he was just getting his lunch from his backpack. Ham sandwich, apparently.

Now the only place he could come from was above them were the snakes couldn't reach., requiring areas where the earth was more solid and densely packed, so as to keep himself from falling through the roof, and even then the snakes would probably warn them if he approached them.

That was why he was leading them towards one of the more densely packed areas, using the snakes to make sure they could follow him. It wasn't any fun it he couldn't pop up, after all.

Making his way to the tunnel ahead of them, where the earth was nice and thick, and their were several large rocks holding the tunnel in place, he waited for them to approach. After thirty seconds of waiting, they turned the corner, first a few snakes, then an absolute carpet of them, followed by a large mass right in front of the two hunter wannabes, most likely protecting their master.

He tensed, doing his best to avoid shifting the earth to much. Wouldn't do for them to here him coming, after all. Waiting until they were just about beneath him, he dug as fast as he could, nearly three meters per second, and shot out of the tunnel roof, above the hooded boy. The hooded boy looked up and . . . HE WAS MADE OF SNAKES!? WHAT!? A hand touched his forehead. Turning around, he saw the hooded boy, now sans hoodie, was standing one the huge pile of snakes he had noted earlier. "Your it, mister mole", he said, smiling cheekily.

Humph! All right, they won. At least it was better than that bee girl, she had bees latch on to him and sting him till he came and told her to call them off . . .

* * *

January Fifth: Russet

It was a good thing that my snake charmer friend had taught his snakes to form an in-case-of-emergency body double, that was paramount to the plan. By having the snakes take my hoodie and a spare pair of my pants, I had managed to take advantage of Moles habits to hit him while we was surprised. Of course, it probably wouldn't have worked if he wasn't scarred of snakes, but that was a moot-point.

At the moment, I was standing there laughing, my chest vibrating with my silent belly laugh. My cousin once told me that my laughter looked more like wheezing in pain, and considering the looks that I was getting from the snake-man and the mole-man respectively, they probably agreed with him.

"Are you alright?" mole asked.

" _Huff,_ yes, _huff huff_ , this is how I, _huff_ , laugh, _snort_!" I answered through my amused huffing and wheezing.

Mole looked at snake man, shrugged, made a follow me gesture, and walked away quickly(probably avoiding the snakes), with the two of us following him. After about ten minutes of walking, we reached a section of with a very dry, firm floor.

"Here we are." The mole man spoke. "Just wait a minute." With that, he dived headfirst into the dirt and disappeared. Unlike the previous times, however, his tunnel was not immediately closed behind him, remaining open. After a little under a moment waiting, he popped up again. "OK, you can come down now." he went back down.

Looking at the snake charmer, I shrugged, and leapt down the hole. Mole had managed to make the dirt solid enough that the whole thing felt like one of those tube slides at water parks . . . you know minus the water . . . hmm, it just hit me. Mole's whimsical, and a bit of a weirdo, how much you want to be he's a _transmuter_?

After about twenty seconds of sliding(which really put his digging speed into perspective) I reached the bottom, a large cavern that had a tunnel leading out of it in the far side. "That is the way to Zaban city." Mole spoke. "Once you get their, my friend, Dr. Sweet should be waiting to lead you to the exam. Well go on. I've grown tired of your stupid face." He disappeared into the dirt again. What was the point of telling me to leave just so he wouldn't have to look at me, if he was just go to leave himself?

I waited a few seconds, for the snake charmer to come down, but got tired of waiting. "Are you coming down or what?!" I roared up the tunnel. A few second longer, and a few snakes emerged from the tunnel. Then more, and then even more. _'Did he send is entire hoard down first?'_ I asked myself.

After what had to be two third of his hoard came out of the tunnel, the charmer finally emerged, sitting on a massive pile of snakes. I guess he doesn't like moving at high speeds. Looking at him, I pointed at the tunnel, and turned to go that way without speaking, knowing he was following.

If nothing else, this has been a good exercise for that "sixth sense" I've been developing over the passed six months. Best one since that hit-man used me as target practice . . . that was NOT my best day, he managed to shot my pants off with a sniper rifle! FROM A MILE AWAY!

* * *

January fifth: Russet

OK, so that tunnel wasn't nearly as long as I'd of thought it'd be. Did we really travel that far before we got to the tunnel? Either way, it was still Tuesday when we got out, according to my watch (and seeing as this watch was a "gift" from that damned R.O.B. It is _never_ wrong.). After emerging from the tunnel, I came face to face with an absolutely massive man.

"Why hello there, glad to see you made it passed Moliere, he didn't give you two to hard a time did he? I'm sweet, Joshua Sweet, nice to meet you, I'm a medicine hunter, nice to meet you." I'm pretty sure that was a run on sentence . . . or a lot of run on sentences, and it didn't look like it was going to stop anytime soon.

"So you have a bunch of snakes huh? How about anti-venom? Would be pretty dumb to not have any anti-venom in case of emergency? Say, you mind letting me milk your snakes? No wait, that could cripple you for the exam, how about after?" He ramble on to the uncomfortable looking snake charmer. Feeling that this had gone on long enough, I interrupted.

"Excuse me, Mr Sweet, but we were told that you could Show us to the exam site?"

"Oh, that's right, I'm supposed to be doing that aren't I? Sorry, been cooped up in this cave for a while, I'll lead you there, come on." Without giving us a chance to respond, he went to leave, forcing us to rush after him.

* * *

January fifth: Russet

"So, this is the place?" I asked, pointing at the restaurant.

"Yep, this is the place, now just show up Thursday, ask if the back room is open, and ask for the steak combo that opens your eyes to the light. When he asks how you want them, say "Grilled over a low flame, until cooked". You got that?" He asked.

"Backroom, "eye opening steak combo," "Grilled over a low flame until cooked", . . . . yeah I think I got it." I responded, giving him a thumbs up.

"Good, do that and they'll let you in, good luck, hope you survive!" The fast talking doctor turned and left the two of us standing next to the door of .

I went lo leave, before something occurred to me. I turned to the snake charmer. "You know, I don't believe I ever caught your name." I gave him a half smile, and extended my hand. "I'm Russet, nice to meet you."

He looked at my hand, and then shook it. "Bourbon." he answer simply, released my hand, turned, and walked away. He paused, and looked over his shoulder. "Good luck."

 **AN: OK I finished that way faster than anticipated. I'm on a roll here. I wonder if I can get another chapter out before Saturday? Maybe two!? I can only hope. Lets see how far I can take this.**

 **Chapter edited August 19th, 2018, at 1:29 AM.**


	3. Of, Apes, Assassins, and Gunshots

**9:10 PM, May 9th, 2018**

 **AN: OK, so I have published two chapters in less than a week. That's a record for me. Like, seriously impressive. The best I've ever done was two withing a month, this exceeds that by a large scale. Lets see if I can keep it up. If there is any advice you could give, it would be appreciated.**

* * *

January seventh: Russet

"So this is the hunter exams." I spoke out loud, looking around the room. There were hundreds of others around the room, ranging from the most generic looking to the most flamboyant. As I looked around, a living Lima-bean walked up to me. "Here is you number, make sure you don't loose it, and keep it on your chest at all times." the bean told me . . . wait, is that actually his name? I can't remember. Not that it matters at the moment.

I yawned, pondering how I had woken up earlier than normal for this. I't was about six in the morning right now. I normally slept until between ten and noon. Of course I had to stay up until dawn to justify it. But I couldn't afford to fall asleep here, this was were I would find out if all that training i had done was worth it.

The people around me were all skilled in some regard or another. All of them could probably beat me in a straight fight if they really wanted. My only chance is being prepared and my knowledge of the world. Of course, that isn't taking into account my secret weapon, but I have not mastered it, not even close. All I can really trust is my wits. And there are smarter people than me here, so I shouldn't be arrogant.

I looked at my number. 207. guess I'll have a while to wait before the exam starts. I walked over to the corner and sat down, before pulling a large container out of my backpack. From which i pulled a dozen or so cylinders, each roughly an inch thick, some longer or shorter than other. The only thing they all had ion common was that they could be screwed together. "Now then, which configuration should I use?" I wondered aloud. The configuration used could make or break my chances here. I had to chose wisely.

As I tinkered with my primary offensive tool, I herd footsteps approaching. Looking up, I found a pudgy man who quite honestly reminded my of a pig approaching. "Hello there," he said . "My names Tonpa . . . "

"The rookie crusher, I know." I finished for him, as I activated and began to clean my switchblade, causing him to start sweating. After staring at him for a moment, I went back to my pondering, as he scurried away.

* * *

January seventh: Russet

I had been sitting for about three hours now, and doing my best to psych myself up for the exam. My walking stick was configured, now at four and a half feet long, and I was ready as I could be. I had taken my nutrient bars, double checked all my concealed weapons, and thought of every way I could use them.

On an unrelated note, I had frightened a few other examines when I began thinking of the best way to kill the various animals that I had seen in the anime, so I'm pretty sure that I must have been emitting killing intent. Since then, I've been walking around seeing if I could sneak up on the other examines, so as to see how well I can conceal my presence. As I came up behind some generic read headed guy with a machete, I heard a voice.

"What are you doing?" A young voice, coming from behind me. I hadn't sensed anyone, so I was surprised, and, not for the first time since I arrived in this world, that my little sister constant sneak attacks had rendered me resistant to shock and surprise, as It only took a quarter of a second to get my heart under control and respond calmly.

Turning to face the voice, I went over a mental check list. White spiky hair? Check. Deep blue eyes? Check. Number 99? Check. Yep, Killua Zoldyic.

"I was testing my ability to conceal my presence." I responded casually.

"Oh? Your not that good. Most of my family's butlers are better." he said casually.

"Oh really? Not that surprising, I've only been practising for about three months." I smirked lightly as I said this.

"Three months? Really? Only took me two weeks!" Not everyone is practically the result of selective breeding kid. "Of course, it took my brother two months, and the butlers said he learned it freakishly fast, so I guess I'm not the best example."

"Really?" I let my smile turn into a grin. "Any tips you could give this humble amateur, O great prodigy?" I did a half bow. Hugh, mad him snicker. He really does have a cat like smile.

After he stopped his snickering, he gave me an easy smirk and answered. "sure, focus on your surroundings instead of yourself, in fact, try and pretend you don't exist. If you cant realize your their, neither can your enemy."

"Hmm, like this?" I asked closing my eyes and turning my attention to my suroundings. There were roughly twenty . . . no thirty people here. Thirty three to be exact. There is a rock the size of a shoe ten feet to the left, their is . . .

"Yes, like that." the junior assassin interrupted me. "Now learn to do that with you eyes open while focusing on your target, and you should have it down."

I have a toothy grin, showing my slightly yellow teeth and slight overbite. "Thanks that could be huge help. Anything I could do to pay you back?" I asked.

He nodded. "Could I have this?" He held up the moon-bar(Think a mars bar but with white chocolate) that I had had in my jackets front pocket.

I gave him a deadpan look, than starred off into the distance like i was a sitcom character talking to the audience. "If I knew you could buy potentially lifesaving advice for a moon-bar, I would have brought more!" Oh look, he's full on laughing now. Glad to see some people appreciate my jokes.

* * *

January seventh: Russet

The door to the elevator opened, letting in who I am certain are the last few applicants. Gon, Loerio, and Kurapika. After watching for a fiew seconds to make sure it was them(Not that i hadn't stopped to watch everyone who came through that door), I returned to my conversation with Killua. He'd been hanging around since earlier, we had been discussing our various pre-exam tests. Apparently, he had to lockpick his way into an abandoned building and crawl through secret passages until he found the guide.

" . . . there were spiders as big as my head!" he exclaimed waiving his hands around for emphasis. "Their webs actually managed to slow me down for a minute, they were very strong, but i made it through . . . then I found the centipede bigger than me!"

"I doubt that slowed you down", I commended. "I mean, when you shot to the other side of the room earlier, I'm sure you were moving at least fast enough to run on water(that's seventy five miles per hour for an average weight human mind you), so I doubt that it could even touch you."

"Yah, your right . . . but that didn't make it any less creapy! Give me rotting corpses any day, they have a normal number of legs!" I am sensing a very minor phobia for bugs here, did he have that in canon? I can't remember, of course, Transmuters are supposed to be "whimsical liars" so I have to take anything he says with a grain of salt.

"Say, you think the exams going to start soon?" I asked.

"Maybe, there's about four hundred people now, so it has to be starting soon." he responded.

"If that's the case, I should probably double check my gear one more time . . . see you later? . . . assuming I survive, that is."

"Sure, see you if you survive!" He gave another cat like grin that had me convinced that he had grown cat ears and a tail, and ran off.

Checking my watch I saw that it was about eight. Great, the longest I've ever run is three hours, covering fourty kilometers, and we'll be going at least until noon, if my memory serves. Good thing I got the bike.

* * *

January seventy: Russet

I've been running for a little over an hour and a half now. I estimate that I've run for roughly twenty four Kilometres during that time. I've been in roughly the middle of the pack for most of that time, though I have neared the front during the moments that I got surges of Adrenalin, but i've also fallen behind at several points. Still to think, I used to be this tired after only four laps around my yard . . . I mean yeah I have a big yard, but still, my endurance must have multiplied fifty-fold over the past year!

But still, next to some of these guys, there's no comparison. I'm sure some of them could outrun me in there sleep . . . well, Hisoka and Illumi, who are both monsters, but still. I hope this doesn't take to long, I know I've run longer at that charity marathon two months ago . . . but I don't think the weight training i did has gotten to me to the point I could reproduce that while carrying my sixty pounds of supplies at the same time.

At the same time, I don't want to resort to the bike until I really have to. I mean, this is why I originaly brought the fourteen pound piece of equipment, but still . . . I guess it's just a matter of pride. I mean, yeah, nearly a two dozen people have quit by this point, but still. Maybe I should just use it? I could really use the energy for when we get to the swamp . . . OK I'll lose it . . . but I'm gonna challenge myself.

Reaching behind me, I grabbed one of the bars of the bike, and began untangling the knots holding it on with the other hand . . . without stopping or slowing down. It wasn't easy, but that's why I said it was a test. The string kept bouncing around and was hard to get a grip on one handed. It took me almost of two minutes to get the bike untangled. Now I just have to set it up and get on it . . . without stopping or slowing down.

Luckily, this model of collapsible bike was easy to set up, just shift here, and it would snap into place. Now running the bike on the ground next to me, all I had to do was get on. This took some psyching up. While I had had my fair share of wipe-outs over the years, the majority in the last six moths, that didn't make it any less pleasant(ever face-plant running down stairs? Not fun.)

In the end, I got the courage to jump. I threw my leg over the seat, and was off. Sure, I wobbled for a moment, but a steadied out after a moment. And I was off! Well not really, if anything, I went slower, until I was at the back, didn't want anyone jamming my wheels, after all.

Staying steadily at the back, my only threats were the odd person collapsing . . . and the odd sore dropout throwing rocks as I passed. Ouch! OK, that bluenet has good aim . . .

* * *

 _'Well, I'd better get off the bike, I don't think I can ride it up those stairs.'_ getting off of my bike and replacing it on my pack, I began to jog up the stairs, taking them two at a time. It was a rather long staircase, but I made it to the top only a little winded, got passed the door, looked around to see everyone had stopped, and sat down at the side of the tunnel exit, placing my backpack next to me, and closed my. I'd was tired, not to the point of exhaustion or anything like that, but a quick rest would be appreciated.

After sitting there for a minute or two, a loud commotion caught my attention. Getting up, I walked over to the crowd, and asked. "Whats going on?"

The guy in front of me glanced at me for a moment, before answering. "Some guy showed up and said that he's the real examiner!" I looked him in the eye for a second, before pushing past him, and the crowd until I had a straight path to the to both of the potential examiners.

". . . is a man faced ape! They love the taste of human flesh, but their libs are long and thin so they're actually quite weak! That's why they disguise themselves as humans to trick us, and lead us into the wetlands, were they team up with other creatures and eat us! Thats what he's trying to do! He . . . "

"Hey!" I interrupted. "How do we know that your telling the truth? For all we know, you could be the ape!" I normally wouldn't get involved, but knowing what I do, I couldn't help myself. "I mean, we could always ask for your card, but you could just say you lost it or the ape took it! But me? I know a question only a true hunter could answer!"

"Oh really?" asked Satotz(he really doesn't have a mouth!), as the other one got a nervious look.

"Yes, what is the hardest "Type" for a manipulator to use?"

"Transmutation," Satotz answered without hesitation, though he raised an eyebrow.

"Wha . . . yeah trans . . . " _'bang!'_ whipped out the revolver and shot the ape in the head. It fell to the ground dead. Good thing I did that target practice . . . even if I wasted a lot on bullets . . . the other one glanced to were its companion lay, humped up, and tried to run away, only to be impaled in the back of the head by a playing card of all things.

I glanced at a smirking Hisoka, feeling like I was staring at a large predator that had no chain to restrain it, before saying out loud. "Any action based off of an assumption is made out of foolishness or desperation. You shouldn't trust anything before you question it."

"A crude way of putting it, but ultimately correct." Satotz spoke. "though, ultimately hypocritical, as you assumed only a hunter would know the answer to that question."

I looked away with a slight smirk. "True, but sometimes its impossible not to assume some things . . . after all, you have to assume everything you know isn't a light, that your thoughts are your own, and that your senses aren't lying to you." for all I know i could be in the matrix and the machine overlords are just having fun with me . . .

"Hmm, I suppose your correct." he turned to the others. "What this man has said is true. You shouldn't take anything at face value. You should test it to see if its the truth until your satisfied." I didn't know if I should be proud or not that I managed to get him to expand on my statement like that. "The swamp ahead is called swindlers swamp for a reason, as you just saw, anything could be a trap. I am sure that several of you deceived into distrusting me. Do you understand? I want to make it abundantly clear, if you loose sight of me at any point while going through the wetlands, you will have no chance of reaching the second faze of the exam. You have been warned. Now let us begin, please follow me."

As he turned and ran into the wetlands, I jogged up behind that sumo guy, and attached a tracker to the back of his suit, so that if I lost sight of Satotz(which was likely) I would have a good chance of finding the end. That is, of course, assuming that my butterfly effect doesn't get him killed. Maybe I should attach some of them to other contestants?

 **1:08 AM, May 12th, 2018**

 **AN: Well, this is the longest chapter yet, even if it's only by a little bit, so I guess thats a good thing. On another note, who should the next crossover character be? I had a couple ideas, but I admit that it might be fun to introduce characters that my self insert here knows nothing about, so if you have any ideas, readers, please tell me. Also, if the character has any canon powers, please explain how a hatsu could be used to imitate it, and what nen types it would use. Also, I'd like to try and keep the whole nen personality test thing goind, so take that into account as well if your going to comment. Thank you for any contributions made! Until next time!( . . . why did I feel the urge to do that?)**


	4. Botany for the win!

**8:08 PM, May 12th, 2018**

 **AN: OK, chapter four here folks. I hope that I can keep this pace up . . . I'm going to see if I can get this chapter over 3000 words!**

* * *

 **January seventh: Russet**

 _'Pant . . . pant . . . pant,'_ I was tired. Very tired _'pant . . . pant . . . '_ I'd say that it was about ten o'clock, meaning that the exam had started about four hours ago. Running on soft ground really was harder! I don't think that I can use the bike either, the wheels would get clogged and it would be harder than running is.

I was walking along the trail left by the other runners, tying to catch my breath. I was keeping my eyes on the ground, as I didn't want to fall into any pit fall-frogs(Can't remember there actual names.) or look at one of those hypnotizing butterfly's. Right now, the only thing I'm trusting is foot-prints and my tracking devices. As it is I nearly got caught by a plant that called for help . . .

As I took a moment to dodge around some of those mushrooms, I came to a fork in the "road". That was a problem. What I mean by fork in the road, is that the foot prints go both ways. And I couldn't tell which way was the right way. Even my tacked showed, that I had to go straight, meaning the path was most likely a curve, and that I had to go around . . . something. This was a problem. So I did the only thing I could do . . . flip a coin.

Tossing the coin straight up, I waited three seconds, then made a clapping motion, catching it between my hand. Turning my hands so the right one was on top of the left one, then I pulled my hand away, showing that it had landed heads up. That means that after I flip the coin, heads up means right and heads down means left.

I flipped the coin. It took four seconds to reach the ground with how hard I flipped it. It landed heads up, so I go right.

* * *

Fun fact time! muscles in this world are predisposed towards faster movement. Meaning that if you take someone from the real world and this world, and they are exactly identical in build, endurance and lifting strength, and both were to have a race, the one from this world would win, and that the guy from this world would be able to throw a stronger punch. This is because impact strength is determined by weight and speed.

All this matters, because even tho I would undoubtedly loose too a real world Olympian in a weight lifting competition, I now hold the speed record for both wet ground and normal ground, as I am currently running from a giant flower mantis at what I estimate to me thirty five miles per hour. Amazing what you can do with Adrenalin, eh?

 _'crash!'_ The twelve foot tall twenty foot long monstrosity's claw slammed into the ground to my right as I jumped to the side, the creature following me in eiry silence, massive eyes showing no signs of life.

 **EAN: Explanatory authors note! Introducing the lovely lotus and the lovely lotus praying mantis! Lovely lotus aren't actually lotus flowers, in spite of their apperance, and are cousins of the corpse flower. They emit a smell so sweet that it weakens the senses, and numb the mind, causing prey to come charging in towards them, into the maw of the waiting mantis, who will rip them to shreds in the process of eating them, with the blood fertilizing the flower!**

 **Luckily for Russet, he has a constant wall of mucus ligning the walls of his nose. The same ailment that give him problems breathing with his nose, has also rendered him unable to smell 99.95 percent of smells, with only very greasy scents being able to penetrate, leaving him clear headed for his encounter! Not that he knows that its his nasal condition that's saved him from fighting this thing drunk . . .**

 _'Damned giant insect, when will it get tired!'_ I mentally snarled as the thing continued to follow after me. It had been on my trail for nearly fifteen minutes, never more than a hundred or so feet behind me. I was wondering if they were the apex predator around here, as every other creature that I've passed has stayed well out of the way, and those multiplying mushrooms didn't even slow it down. The only thing I can think of that might be able to hold their own against it is those giant frogs . . . I may actually have to stand and fight this thing! I'd need my secret weapon for that . . . although, I suppose that since their isn't anyone around, I could afford to bring it out.

My mind made up, I decided to risk it. Putting on a dash of speed, I tried to get as far ahead of the colossal pain in . . . well my legs actually. Getting about two hundred feet from it after several minutes of running and nearly wiping out by taking full speed corners, I slid to a stop, whipped it off, unzipped it and grabbed my secret weapon in time to dive out of the way of Mr. Grabsy's latest attempt on, my life.

I steeled myself, adjusted my grip, and unleashed my weapon. At first glance, it appeared to be a big green baseball bat, made out of long, thin, leafless vines. This was technically true. Placing my hands on the handle, the only brown point, I placed my fingers on several specially placed lumps that served as buttons. As I touched the buttons, the vines unwound, about twelve different vines, each over thirty feet long, all waving around like tentacles as I apply slight pressure to each button.

 **EAN: Explanatory authors note! Introducing the bornerland crush-vine! This terrifying grows in low nutrient soil, and thus seeks to increase it's nutrient access via crushing anything that approaches and tearing them to pieces, with the blood fertilizing it. When nurished optimaly, this vine can grow as much as three feet a day.**

 **The capture of prey is accomplished via numerous string like, vibration sensing nerves spread through the roots and the vines themselves, letting the vine when something approaches, and signalling for the vines to whip, wrap around, and crush and/or tear it to pieces.**

 **However, if the vine is cut open at a young age, it's nerves can be delicately replaced to other places on the plant, allowing someone to use the vine as a deadly weapon, commanding the vine to move, wrap around, and crush a target with shocking precision. However, even an absolute expert should be careful, as fine control in next to impossible under normal circumstances, and, as the vines top speed is recorded as mach three, a blow, even a glancing one, against ones own body could prove devastating.**

The mantis jumped back away from me, sensing danger. Just in the nick of time, to(unfortunately), as my vines slammed down where its head had been. Adjusting my grip, I sent the vines swinging in its direction, the creature again jumping out of the way of my attack. The creature, seeming to know I had a maximum range of thirty feet, stayed outside of my range of attack.

We were in a face off now, neither of us willing to press an attack. I didn't want ti find out if it could cut my vines, and it didn't want to learn what said vines could do to it. This created an impasse. Neither of us wanted to die, but it's desire to get me apparently made it far bolder than normal, meaning unlike normal, it didn't retreat when it was in danger. _"Sigh" 'why can't anything ever be easy . . . ?_

Seeming to notice my annoyance and take it as a distraction, the creature lunched at me. Flicking my wrist, twitching my fingers, and tightening my grip, I sent the vines wrapping around a tree to my left, wrapping around it lightly(which for these vines, meant the tree was only a little crushed) and allowed them to pull me out of the way. And nearly ran into a tree.

Whipping around, I sent my . . . well, whip whipping in a whipping motion(I'm just trying to see how many times I can fit whip in at short notice.) The mantis, flexible creature that it was, ducked under the vines, and shot its grabbers out at me, causing me to fall onto my back, smiling like a maniac. A loud splintering filled the air, my vine had completely crushed the tree behind the mantis, and with the slightest "creek!" the tree fell on top of the mantis.

Taking advantage of this, I scrambled crab-crawl-style out of the range of its claws. With a creek, the slightly crushed mantis pushed the fallen tree off of itself, only for the vines to wrap around it's abdomen. With a twitch of my finger, the vines tightened, crushing the the bug in a sound not to dissimilar to the sound of a water balloon bursting. However, still having some life in it, the creature swung its oversized scythes at me one last time from it's place on the ground, causing me to duck, and causing the tree behind me to collapse, split in two.

"Well that was a close on," I said, coming down from an Adrenalin rush. "Glad I didn't get hit by that thing, I happen to like my lower body!"

* * *

January seventh: Russet

It was now around eleven thirty, and according to my tracking tags, I have about ten minutes to go to get to the largest cluster of tags. I had placed five tags overall, and of those, two were at different points behind me, while the last three were gathered up ahead. Unless all three of the people I tagged are now dead in the same area, I have almost reached the end of the first test. I was doing a light jog now, trying not to tire myself out anymore than necessary.

Luckily, I believe that I'm out of the swamp at least, now that it's clear forest around me and green grass under my feet. Now the only thing I need to worry about are those giant pigs . . . I paused at a tree, and rapped mu knuckles against it tree times before moving on. Best not to jinx myself.

The air was fresh and had a moist feeling to it. I couldn't tell how it smelled, I was forced to breath through my mouth, as my nose had been clogged for most of the day, a regular side affect of exercise for me.

Still jogging, I adjusted my grip on the four foot long praying mantis . . . let's go with scythe, in order to make my grip more comfortable. I had taken the thing as a trophy after the fight, the ting was rather light in spite of its extreme cutting power. Even under my strength, it could easily cut a good six inches into a tree trunk. Of course, it wasn't a sword or anything, there was no handle, so who knows how that would have changed the impact . . .

Anyway, at this point, I only have maybe a few minutes until I find my trackers. If their at the end of the exam, I'll stay and pass, and if not, then I'll be in a relatively good situation to recover my tracking devices. I of course, wouldn't go after them if a overly dangerous creature has them, or there in an overly dangerous situation.

Luckily for me, it was in fact the finish that they were at, so I didn't have to do anything overly dangerous. Jogging up to the other contestants, I placed my backpack on the ground, put my hands on my knees and panted. I wasn't that Tired, but there wasn't anywhere to sit except the ground, and this took some strain off my legs.

Looking around, I tried to spot the people I had attached my trackers to. There was only around fifty people here, so it shouldn't be that hard. The first one was on this guy with spiky green hair and a sword. He was sitting against a tree. If you looked, you could see the tracking device attacked to his belt were I threw it earlier. Now, I could either go up and ask for it back, or I could try and take it off of him without him noticing . . . I need more stealth training, so I should go with option B.

Looping around behind him, I stood about forty feet behind him and closed my eyes. I tried to think of mys surroundings. To think of them so intensely I forgot my own existence. Assuming Killua wasn't lying to me, this should help me hide my presence . . . and if he was, my stealth wouldn't get any worse, so no big deal.

Walking towards him slowly, I made sure to avoid any fallen leaves, keeping my footfalls to areas were the grass was moist and green to ensure that I was moving as silently as possible. I planned my every move in advance. I, as a person didn't exist, "I" was just a body carrying out an objective. Nearing the swordsman, I reached out, and reached out, grabbing the tracking device. I plucked it off as carefully as I could, slipping it into my pocket, before turning to the swordsman and saying. "Hey, some run huh?" this made him jump six feet straight up.

Whipping around to face me, hand on his heart, the green haired swords man snapped. "Whats the big idea?! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?!"

Snorting at the look on his face, I responded. "No, this kid gave me advice on sneaking up on people earlier and I wanted to try it out." that was technically true, no need to mention the tracking device. "But hey, looks like it worked! . . . or you just dropped your guard that badly."

Getting a look on his face, he cleared his throat, "Must have been some trick, I didn't notice until you were right there." he said. Most likely didn't like the thought of his guard being low. Better for his pride to blame my skill than his failing.

"Yeah, well I don't go dropping your guard at a vital moment, it could cost you the exam." I say with a smirk, walking off.

Continuing to look around for my tracking devices, I overherd two people talking " . . . followed the trail of Leorio's cologne."

"You Tracked his scent? That's how? Man, Gon, you really are weird aren't you?" Gon and Killua, glad to see taking to him didn't accidentally ruin the main duo.

"Excellent work everyone!" my thoughts were cut off by Satotz. "The second exam phase will be taken here in Visca forest park, so I shall now take my leave! I wish you all the very best of luck!" with that he took of into the forest with his usual over exaggerated stride, the other applicants staring after him, before turning to the large door as it opened with a rumble.

"Would all of the applicants who passed the first phase please enter." A female voice resounded.

After entering the large area, we walked in the direction of the two examiners, a massive man in a yellow shirt that didn't fully cover his stomach and a green haired woman with five pig tails in a star pattern, wearing short shorts and what I would hesitate to call a piece of clothing(More like lingerie).

Walking up to the duo, I began mentally preparing myself for what was to come next.

"Welcome you all, I am Menchi, your examiner for your second phase." the woman spoke.

"And likewise I'm Buhara!" The man continued.

Everyone stared at the two seriously . . . until Buhara's stomach growled uproariously, causing some to question what that sound was outloud.

Turning to her partner, Menchi asked. "You getting hungry Buhara?"

"Not just hungry, I'm famished!" He exclaimed.

Menchi stood up and turned to the audience with a smirk, "There you have it, the second phase . . . will be cooking!"

"what, cooking?" "What do you mean cooking!? We came here to take the hunter exam!" various people in the audience spoke out.

Unfazed, Menchi continued. "That's right, the second phase of the exam will be preparing a meal that will satisfy our pallets."

"Why do we have to cook?" someone asked.

"Don't you know?" She closed he eyes, a smirk on her face. "It's simple really, because were gourmet hunters."

In response to this proclamation, the sumo guy started to laugh, followed by several others in the audience. "Idiots. I ,muttered under my breath. Even not knowing whats coming I wouldn't have been so stupid as to _laugh_ at a _veteran hunter_ , but then again I have above average intelligence . . . the vast majority of the applicants are muscle heads aren't they?

As the laughter at them died down the fat guy(That is to say, fat head) opened his (big) mouth. "OK, so your both gourmet hunters, so what exactly do you want us to make." he asked in a smug arrogant tone of voice.

"Buhara?" Menchi said. Time to find out if this follows the anime or the manga . . .

"Today's required ingredient will be pork!" ' _Hope it's the second the anime, i only saw the first couple episode of the original . . . '_

Pork, like pig meat?

"Feel free to use meat from any kind of pig in Visca forest." Buhara really was being sadistic, only one kind of pig lived here and it was the violent in the world . . . "As you see, you will use these facilities to prepare your pork dishes! To pass the test you must create a dish to satisfy our discriminating palates!"

"We won't be evaluating taste alone," Menchi continued. "So take this seriously, is that clear? When we've both eaten our fill, this portion of the exam will be over."

"OK, enough talk," captain fat-head spoke, his arrogance thick enough I cut it from twenty feet away. "lets just get to it alright?" Honestly, I want to bring him down a few pegs, but that's the examiners job.

"Let the exams second phase," Buhara smacked his stomach, the sound of gong going off(talk about brass abs!). "Begin!"

As the other examines ran off, I stay behind. "Hey, is there a time limit? Or can we take as much time as we want? I'm not exactly the best chef!"

"We'll be doing in the order of your tags, so if your not done by the time your called, tough." she spoke mercilessly.

"Darn it, really should have taken those cooking lesions while I had the chance." I walked off sighing. "Well, mite as well see what i can do on short notice!" even if I'll probably fail this, It would be wrong to not at least try.

 **AN: 11:07 PM May 16th, 2018. Well, 3200 words isn't bad. Especially considering this is me, Mr two finger typer, were talking about here. I'd respond to my review here, but I only got one, so . . . Yo, Candy4beth, is five or six hours a fast enough update for yah? Did that come off as rude . . . sorry if it did.**

 **Anyway, I will repeat my request for inspiration when it comes to potential crossovers. If you have an idea of a character who's powers would work in verse, without changing their personality, or who you would just like to see, please tell me.**

 **Also, If you really want, I could use a fiew OC's if you've got them. Preferably villains. If you send me an OC I like, than I may use it. Be sure to include an in depth backstory and a personality in depth enough that I don't end up writing your character as OOC. That is if you send me anything.**

 **I mean, sure this is the best I've done at writing in years, but the lack of reception is a bit disapointing, but I quess that hunter x hunter just doesn't get as much attention. Sigh. Well, write you . . . sometime in the week, hopefully.**


	5. Bacon, Eggs, and Giant Birds!

**AN: 8:21 PM May 17th, 2018. Well, here's chapter 5. I hope I can do as well as I've done previously. At this point, my story would appear on my own search!(I always specify 10k+) I also hope I get some comments, the only one I've gotten so far was a "write faster" request. Well, here goes nothing! Please R &R!(No, I don't mean Rest & Relax!)**

January seventh: Russet

I was lucky. I had run into a lone great stamp right off the bat. I was unlucky. I was alone with a great stamp.

"Come on, come on come on!" as I ran I was trying to find were I had stored my hand grenades(don't ask were I got them!) hoping that I could blow its head off with a properly timed throw. Unfortunately, trying to outrun a giant pig on flat ground while you shuffled through a backpack is not a good position, leading me to try and reach the tree line so I could zig-zag.

 _'squeeee!'_ the great stamp hot on my heels squeeled at the top of its lungs. If it wasn't life of death right now, I'd make a suey joke . . .

Reaching the tree line, I darted around a thick tree as fast as I could, hearing the pig slam into the other side. Reaching deeper into my back pack as I slowed to a jog (I swear this was organized this morning!) I finally found a hand grenade. Coming to a stop and pulling it out, I placed the pin in my mouth, but didn't pull it out just yet. Waiting until I see the pig.

The pig rounded the corner of the tree, stared at me, and began to paw the ground like a bull. I backed away, trying to put more distance After a second or two, it took off in a charge right at me. I backpedalled as fast as I could, pulled the pin out, waited for a second, and threw the bomb at the pig, who didn't even slow down.

I've always taken pride in my timing, so I wont deny that I felt a grim satisfaction when the little bomb went off _just_ as it soured over the pigs snout, causing the now dead animal to stop it's charge, and wipe-out on the ground rolling to a stop just in front of me.

No, I didn't plan that! It just happened. Well, alright, I did plan that, but i didn't expect it to work! Now, how do I move ten times my weight in pig back to the exam sight?

* * *

Luckily, The pigs are lighter than they look, I could drag it. I quess it shouldnt be that surprising, if they weighed as much as I would have guessed, The main three (Gon, Leorio, and Kurapika) wouldn't have been able to carry them, after all, they couldn't open the testing gate without training even after this. Of course, It was still quite the workout. I'm covered in sweat.

Dragging my pig through the front entrance, I see that I'm the last one here. Not surprising. They could all carry there's, and left before me. Luckily, It looks like they only beat me by maybe a minute or two, so I'm not to far behind.

Getting to the cooking area left for me, (I could tell because it said "Reserved for 207") I began to skin the pig. I quite honestly had a minimal idea of how to do so, only having gutted fish before, but in the end I figured that cooking cut up pieces of meat would be take less time than simply spit roasting the whole thing.

It took me about five minutes to get the skin off, and I spent what I'm sure was over an hour separating the pig into various different pieces that I had no idea the name of in a display that would make the average butcher start ranting at me. I really should have studied for this part of the exam.

I began pan cooking various different pieces, although never at the same time. By using multiple pieces of the same cut, the same size and thickness, I attempted to determine the optimal cook time. I have about three or four hours to get this done . . .

After about two hours, I had several almost finished pieces, and a lot of raw meat leftover. It's a miracle I'm not swarmed by fly's, but I suppose that could be a result of the examiners interfering with nen . . .

Either way, It's almost my turn, and I don;'t have anything beyond a basic pork chop. I'm considering weather I should serve them or make something else. "207!" never mind.

Picking up my two tray's, each with two plates and some sauce, I walked over to the two judges. Placing my two trays down on the table, I awaited a response. "Oh, your servings are so small . . . " Buhara seemed disappointed. Taking the pork-chops, he ate them both in one bite each, only pausing to lather the sauce over the one with no toping, before shoving it into his mouth. Watching him, I noted that he took his time chewing mine instead of simply tearing and swallowing. That's either a really good sign or a bad one. "But yours are the best tasting yet! Pass!"

Menchi opened one eye at that, and turned to the two pork-chops I had prepared for her. I'd spent hours experimenting and tasting these, so I knew they tasted good before I made them, but somehow I doubt that they are going to be up to her standard. Taking s fork and knife in hand for the first time that day, she cut off a piece of the first one and took a bite. "Garlic and brown sugar? Hmm, but you got a little to much of each and they start to overwhelm the flavor of the pork . . . "

She cut off a piece of the other one, which had no topping, and dipped it in the apple sauce. "This piece of pork's a little bit dry, using applesauce to counter that was a good move, but in the end it doesn't correct the texture differences. Hmm, I'll decide if you pass latter." with that she gave me the universal "Leave" sigh, and I went back to my pile of meat.

Looking over the large pile of raw muscle, I asked myself "What should I do with this now . . . ?"

* * *

I was trying to wrap up my pigs messily cut remains with the plastic bags provided. Good thing these were here or it would all have gone to waste! Looking at the other contestants, it seems that some of them have tried lathering sauce on top of their dishes, but Menchi keeps turning them down for a lack of ingenuity.

At this rate things may turn out the same way as cannon. Everyone failing and the chairman having to step in . . . I hope I mange to pass though, I'm scared of heights! I don't want to jump off a cliff! Even if i did it I don't know if I'd be strong enough to hold on the the web . . .

I began to internal monologue, and mentally try and figure out how strong I actually was. I had managed to completely shatter wooden boards before, even destroy small trees, but as I'd said, durability and speed in this world are enhanced compared to base strength, so . . . I don't understand strength in anime. No point in dwelling on it I guess.

I finished my internal argument in time to see a certain sumo wrestler flying into one of the gate posts. How long have I been doing this? I know I tend to zone out, that's why I've never tried for a drivers license, but did I seriously faze out as badly as to miss everyone freaking out over not passing? I mean, there was that one time I didn't realize that LOUD rock and roll was playing for five minutes, but that was just the background noise!

Beginning to go back to the main group from where I'd been standing on the side, I noticed a small silver speck on the ground. My tracking device! I never did get it off the sumo wrestler, did I? Picking it, up I returned to the mai group.

Menchi was currently saying something while juggling cooking knives at a speed I doubt would have been physically possible back on earth. " . . . knows some kind of martial art. If you lack focus and the will to experiment, that you've already failed your exam." she swaggered up to the front of the crowd. Standing there in a challenging manner.

"That may be true." an elderly voice came from above us. "But that said, don't you think that your choice of exam is a little bit excessive, Menchi?" Seconds after that was said, a humanoid figure slammed into the ground in front of us, throwing up a cloud of dust.

The loud sound of wooden sandals clacking against a stone walkway, audible even over the sound of the whipping wind. Emerging from the cloud, an old man with white hair in a tail at the back of his head, and a hooked beard that had me questioning how much gel he used.

"W-whose that old man?"

"The selection committee chairman." Menchi answered the random question. "He's the one in charge of the hunter exam. Chairman Netero."

"Well I work behind the scenes." The chairman said. "I only take action when there's an issue, like now. So, menchi . . . you failed all these people because you didn't like how they never tried anything new?"

"No, sir . . . " Menchi looked a little guilty "the truth is, I lost my cool when one of the candidates insulted gourmet hunters and made the exam harder than necessary."

"So then, you know that this exam was unacceptable?"

"Yes sir, I know I loose control when cooking is involved. I am under-qualified to be an examiner. I will resign, so please redo the second phase."

"Hmm, but it would be difficult to find another examiner on such short notice."

"I'm sorry about that."

"Well then, how about this." The chairman had a a slightly smug smile. "I'd like you the continue working as an examiner, but you must also participate in the next test you propose . . . Is that acceptable? I am sure that that would help the contestants to accept the results!"

"That's true." Menchi smiled. "Then I know just the test!"

Here we go . . .

* * *

Sigh. Why does it had to be _jumping of a flipping cliff!?_ Why couldn't it be something sane, like having to trek through miles of hot jungle to get to a special fruit and then get back within a certain time frame, or . . .

 _'Crack!'_ Something hit me in the back of the head. I turned to look behind me. Killua was standing there with a smirk. "You should really focus more." Smug sun of a . . . you know, actually, his mother really is a . . . !

Before I could finish that thought, someone began to panic as Menchi jumped off the cliff.

I walked up to the front in time to here someone ask how she was going to get back up. Looking down I saw her begin to disappear into the mist below, when there was a sudden burst of wind, blowing menchi back up to the top.

"There are powerful air currents here that the spider-eagles use to let the hatch lings get up to the top of the cliff." Netero explained.

"I've been waiting for this!" lead with that childish cry, the main four jumped, to the shock of the onlookers.

"Well, what are we waiting for?!" with that cry, someone vaulted over the side, followed by several dozen other contestants. "Yeah, count me in!"

"Hey, wait, I haven't explained everything yet." menchi exclaimed as they darted past her. After seeing that they weren't slowing down she got a somewhat . . . proud look on here face.

After the last of the jumpers had went, I approached her. "Hey, you were saying something?" I asked with one side of my lips raised into a half smile, causing her to tern to me. She seemed to take a moment to regester my question, before answering.

"The drafts only come every one minute and twenty seconds. So you have to time it properly, or just have good instincts." She answered. "Not that it matters."

"Hmm? Why doesn't it matter?" I asked.

"You already passed." she gave me a look like I was stupid.

That surprised me. That's what I get for not paying attention, I guess. Well, at least it didn't show on my face! "I wouldn't have thought that would count, what with us redoing the exam." I said, trying to explain why I hadn't known I passed. And it was technically true.

"Well, you and the blond kid in the parka don't need to do this . . . of course, he went over before I could explain that." she had an annoyed look at that. Still . . .

I sighed. "Now I'm going to feel pathetic for not jumping." I though aloud, before going back to the ship. But hey, I don't think I have the grip strength to hold on to the web, let alone grab onto it in the fist place, and even then, I prefer to have both feet on the ground, thank you, I couldn't . . . make it . . . "do you think the chairman would let me borrow that cable on the blimp?" i asked out loud, turning off to the distance like I was watching a studio audience.

* * *

January seventh: Kuropika

"So I didn't have to get the egg?" He asked, somewhat embarrassed. He had jumped off the cliff with Gon and Leorio without thinking, and nearly fallen to his death when the web almost broke. And in the end he didn't need to do anything, since he had already passed.

Hanging his head in shame, he listened as his examiner continued to speak. "Yeah, you and the hoodie kid both passed back in the first one, so you didn't need to go throwing yourself off a cliff. Had you just waited for me to explain like hoodie over there . . . whats he doing?"

Looking for him self, he saw that the brown haired man in a hoodie was dragging cable out of the blimp.

"Hey, chairman, isn't that the cable for emergency rescues and all that?" Menchi asked the old man.

"Yes, I said he could use it." The old man answered with a smile.

He had dragged the cable to the edge, and was feeding it over. After he had fed, what his expression said was an appropriate amount, he dashed back to the dirigible and tightened the cable. He then entered the airship for a moment, and returned wearing a harness that went around his waist and over his shoulders, his backpack most likely left inside.

Attaching his harness to the cable, he wound up the cable, gripped it in two places, and stood at the side, watching. After the draft went, he climbed over, slowly feeding more cable through his fingers (which had thick leather gloves) as he went down.

After he got to the end of the cable, he placed both feet on the side of the cliff, and began running back and forth, rotating his body and running the opposite direction after he reached the end of his momentum. A crowd gathered at the edge of the cliff.

After he was running back and forth along a sixty foot trail, he suddenly jumped straight away from the cliff, his combined jumping strength and momentum letting him reach out and just brush an egg, before gravity laid claim and drew him back towards the cliff, which he slammed into feet first.

"Oh, so that's his strategy." the chairman spoke, causing Kuropika to glance in his direction, before looking back down at the hooded man. As he began to regain momentum in his running, one of the other examines shouted. "Look out for the eagle!"

Sure enough, heading straight for the man on the man on the cord, was a giant eagle with . . . spider . . . legs (Kuropika subconsciously began to grit his teeth, supressing the urge to jump over the edge and attack the creature) an a wingspan of fifteen feet, causing the man . . . to jump right at it?! Slamming into the creature, that seemed as surprised as the watchers at his decision.

Slamming into the surprised bird(arachnid?)'s neck, he gripped on to the animal's feathers,, beginning to beat it about the head with a sphere he had pulled form his pocket. Wait! That shape, was it a hand grenade?!

"Whoot! Ride that bird!"

"Kick its ass!"

"Go get it hoodie!"

The other contestants cheered him on, even as the bird and young man slammed into the cliff, the bird holding on with it's legs and biting the man on the shoulder, as he slammed the edge of the square end of his grenade into the birds large eye, causing it to release his shoulder as it screeched in pain, giving him the chance to flip him and the bird around so it was between him and the cliff, and slam its head into the stone with a crack.

The two continued to wrestle for a few more seconds, the eagle struggling to keep a grip on the man, who didn't need to hold on to anything, before the man took a chance to look at his watch, smirked, grabbed the bird by its open beak with his unoccupied hand, wrapped his other arm around it's head, and wrestled around until his back was against the cliff, and finally, after a moment that seemed to need a countdown, kicked it out into the air, just in time for the updraft to fling it straight up.

The audience followed the bird with there gaze as it was blown up above their heads by the wind, levelled out, turned, and went to fly back down, before a small, round object was, likewise sent up by the wind. The hand grenade. _'Booom!'_ Kurapika took a grim satisfaction in watching the arachnid-avian die.

"Woow."

"Did he time that?"

"Good timing!"

"Woo-hoo! That was epic!" various people called out at the display

Kurapika and the rest of the audience watched the birds body wobbled in the air, before crashing to the ground to the left of them crowd (where Buhara, grabbed it with a hungry smirk and dashed towards the ship) before the turned back to the man on the cable, who had, after waiting a moment to confirm the birds fate, returned to his running.

After two more attempts at the eggs (To the cheers and awws of watchers) he finally managed to reach the eggs, grabbing on to one before he was pulled back to the cliff. After getting the egg, he, oddly enough, returned to running, the reason for which revealed itself after a minute, as, kicking off one more time, he road the updraft up, and landed in a hastily cleared clearing in the line of watchers, many of whom cheered.

"Feel less pathetic now, fly-boy?" Menchi asked sarcastically.

"Yeah, sorry, my pride apparently couldn't take the hit, and I'm lazy enough as it is without someone giving me a free pass." he handed her the egg before heading to the airship, before he was cut off by Leorio.

"Hey, is your shoulder OK? You took a nasty bite there." His . . . friend? Asked.

"Hmm?" the hooded man glanced at Leorio, stared for a minute, then seemed to register just what he had said. "Oh, no, see?" he tapped the ripped up shoulder of his hoodie, showing that there was something under it, that made a clacking noise as he tapped it. "I have fibreglass armour under my hood, it's not that strong, but it kept me from getting anything more that a few bruises in that little scuffle!" he seemed amused. "Thanks for the thought though!" he continued on his way to the ship.

Kurapika watched him leave, when he paused, looked in his direction, met his eyes, smiled, waved and gave him a thumbs up, and continued on his way. _'Maybe I should talk to him later?'_ he wondered.

 **AN: 1:46 AM May 19th, 2018. Today, I have written two thousand, four hundred, and seven words. This is my new record. I swear, I only managed to pull it off cause I saw I had over 350 views. I mean, sure only ten follows and nine favourites, but still, over three hundred views!**

 **OK, now that that's out of the way, I'd like to repeat my usual request for Ideas for potential crossover characters, and my request for OC's from the last chapter. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go back to my previous author notes. Please R &R!**


	6. Dreams and Drug-Heads

**AN: 8: 11 PM May 19th, 2018. Hey! I don't really have anything to say . . . except to respnd to a review! It's only the second I've gotten at this point, so I'm glad! And probably going to overdo it.**

 **Vete: Yeah, I know, I like Self-Inserts myself, but their all either sappy romances, "I'm a Zoldyck" or BOTH(Of course, you can literally eliminate half of your options in this section by using "Without: Romance . . . ). The only good on I've found is T-man 5000's one, and seeing as how, by his last update he's going through an existential crisis that brings skillet's song "Would it Matter" to mind, so I don't foresee any updates on that any time soon.**

 **OK, rant done, chapter start! Oh yes, there's a flashback this chapter, so prepare your pitchforks, I'm ready for you!**

* * *

January eighth: Russet

It was past midnight, but I was still awake, still riding the adrenaline rush from my fight with the eagle. My shoulder had a bit of a bruise, and hurt to move, but it was nothing to hindering, the bigger problem was that my ankles hurt slightly from the running, running at an angle, and landing afterwords.

Even though I loved running, I had weak ankles that tended to get sore, one of my more major weaknesses, alongside my inflexible joints that tended to get sore and how I get horrible cramps, necessitating that I drink far more water than most when active. These are the main things that held me back.

The fact that I could hear people fighting nearby didn't help. Why did I have to take the room closest to Netero's training area? Sure, there are no snorers in this room, but it's still annoying! I'm half tempted to go throw my tear gas grenade in there, but I only have the one and don't want to waste it. Come to think of it, I used up half of my grenades today, so I have two standard ones, one teat gas, one laughing gas, and the pipe bomb with the remote trigger. Overall, not to big a deal, but I'd prefer more. I am one of the weakest people here from a purely physical standpoint.

As the sound of another crash shook my room, I got up, grabbed the sleeping bag and may backpack before heading for the end of the ship. I had always slept with a fan on back home, so the drone of the engine should be comforting . . .

Soon afterwords, I found an area in the halls that seemed to fit my specifications, and laid down, though not before turning off the light for that section. I laid there for about ten minutes, and almost falling asleep, I pulled back the hammer of my gun and pointed it at Tonpa. "Feeling lucky?" I asked in my best impression of a pissed off cowboy. The sound of rushed footsteps answered that. I snuggled back down on my inflatable pillow and finally fell asleep to the _'vrrr'_ of the engine.

* * *

January eighth(Reality)/July third(Dream)

The man now calling himself Russet Roulette was stuck. He had been trying get through the large deserts of the Yorbian Continent to get to the Dominion of Evarone, which was this worlds equivalent of Canada, only with more mountains, the same way the United states of Sahareta were those world equivalent of the U.S.A, only with more deserts. However, along the way, a random dry spell had his, causing the wide but shallow Nila river to dry to the point were the large cargo ships that travelled down the river couldn't get past the shallower, rocky areas, causing him to become stuck in Rivo city.

Pha! Rivo city? More like new Gotham! The large city had an absolutely massive population of seven million, covered over nine-hundred square kilometres, and was industrialized to the point that there was a constant layer of smog over the city. The city was right in the middle of the continent, right on the edge of the large river that was used as a transport route for a lot of shipping, and had oil deposits off in the dessert, making it an overall rich city. And a cess pool of crime and villainy. And from these newspapers, he swore that half of the crime bosses are nen users! And that's not all, he recognize half of them!

The first one he had made note of was a mysterious woman who had taken control of the souther docks area, who always wore an insect themed mask, and attacked her enemies with brutal swarms of insects and creepy crawlies. No one here knew her true name, so the media dubbed her "Skitter." Here enforcers matched the descriptions of the Undersides. A quick internet search at the local library showed the the name of the local dock-workers association was Danny Hebert, and he had a daughter named Taylor.

The next one was good(not) old Bane, like, form batman? Well, he looks and sounds more like the movie version, and has more or less the same backstory, so he guessed it fits, and he needs no introduction.

Also from Batman, was a hypnotist who could control people who listened to him sing. The Music Mister, a character who gave him an appreciation for music, and manipulators all at the same time.

Then, of course, marvel laid its claim, and he found the King-pin. Yes, as in from Spiderman. And it appears that half of said wall-crawlers enemies are here as his enforcers, without anyone to web them up. At the very least they had the dare-devil here to keep those ones in check.

And those are just the ones he'd found or known already, who else may be here? And that's not counting the people he'd been hearing about, he was sure were not "crossovers". Although the gangsters appearance's are somewhat generic, and He didn't have universal knowledge of media, so he probably missed a few.

The worst . . . out-lier, would be Renga Gildarian He and his own enforcers had no counterparts that I'm familiar with (Of course, there are a lot of series I know nothing about). This guy? He was BIG, and had bien for nearly a decade. Gambling? Yep. Robbery? You got it. Smuggling? Of coarse! Drugs, prostitution and human trafficking? His _trademarks._ The police suspected half, at _minimum_ , of his labour was made up of his drug victims, seeing as most of them seemed permanently zoned out.

Between him and the others, this city was about the last place you wanted to spend the night on the street. Of course, by day, the city's actually a nice place, and actually quite safe if you know where to look. This is thanks to the police force being about as strong as the criminals. I am serious here. The head detective? An immigrant from Jappon named _Arima Kishou_. The local SWAT leader? His name's Allen walker. Has a weird arm. And he swore he'd seen some of the cops is street fight videos, but he hardly know anything about that so he wasn't sure.

And then there's the commissioner. Another out-lier he'd never seen before, his name was Sagitarian Salone, and he looked like someone took a American military stereotype and put it in uniform, with muscles so big he can't fight without taking off his shirt. You'd never see his eyes, he was always wearing military grade sun-glasses. He where's a sheriffs hat, and there's a betting pool on weather or not he was under it, as he has no visible hair.

He'd say the commissioner was a powerful emitter,, one collapsing a large warehouse with a wave of his hand shooting people with a finger-gun, and his apparent personality.

Overall, this place is one of the most danger urban areas on the planet. If not the most dangerous.

It was here that he would be stuck for at least a month. That meant he had to find somewhere to stay. The hotels here were split into two category's. Those for the rich visiting business partners, which he definitely wouldn't be able to afford, at least not within the self set limits, and the ones for ship workers, dirt cheep, but they were probably mostly full. No one would stay on those bunks if there was another option. Full of bed bugs in the case of the ones with vacancy.

But he couldn't just stay on the ship either. Technically he only got on through bribery, and had had to sleep in a shipping container. Now that the ship was docked, there was no choice but to find somewhere to stay. That was not easy in a city like this. he had looked all around, and made the mistake of ending up in one of the "bad" areas. It was going to be dark soon, and even moving around was going to get dangerous very soon.

Now, according to the rather in depth street map he had bought, there was a shorter way to the better off side of town, but he'd have to cut through several alleys. That was a gamble. He either took the long way and risked still being in one of the more dangerous parts of town when the worst element came out, or cut through the alleys and risked running into an early bird.

Deciding to leave it to fate, he pulled out a dice. _'Odds for alleys.'_ he decided. Rolling the dice, the dice landed on five. He turned into the first alley. Nothing, looking around for a moment, he crossed the alley without incident.

It took two minutes to reach the next alley, and it was getting dark. Going in, he noticed someone hiding behind the dumpster on the right side. He walked passed the suspiciously dressed person with his hand on his left side, miming holding a gun. Either the guy wasn't a mugger or his bluff worked, as he made it through unscathed.

It took another few minutes to get to the third alley. Entering the alley, the immediate feeling of . . . something, echoed through him. As if something was in front of him, something dangerous. He moved with caution. Trying to make every footstep silent, he walked straight down the middle of the alley. As he walked past a large pile of garbage near the middle, however, the feeling he had seemed to shift. Behind him, now.

Spinning on his heel, he turned to look at the pile of garbage, and now, saw a figure pressed into the side. The figure was wearing a pair of dirty, stained jeans, and a black hooded shirt with a large pocket in the front. Curiously, the hoodies entire right arm was torn off, revealing a pale, muscular limb. His right hand was buried in the garbage, and his left was holding something. He seemed unconscious, but his face was covered by shadows, so it was hard to tell.

Now here was a problem. Was this guy the danger he felt or not? He certainly looked dangerous, but there was no way to be sure. Should he just leave, or take a closer look? The dice again mad an appearance, and it was decided to go closer.

Moving closer, he looked the man over. Up close he could see the mans greasy black hair and pale, sickly looking skin. He had dark bags under his eyes. The thing in his left hand turned out to be a syringe. All things considered he looks like a drug-head who had just taken an injection. Actually, was he even breathing?

Curiosity ever so slightly overcoming caution, he approached the person. Standing five feet away, he still couldn't tell if the man was breathing. Walking closer still, he reached out to check for a pulse . . .

A pale hand grabbed his wrist. The man opened one eye, the action somehow giving him the impression of being a great effort on his part. "What . . . are you . . . what are you doing?" the mans voice ground out like it was a labour.

Trying to calm his pounding heart, Russet responded. "I couldn't tell if you were breathing, so I was checking."

The man stared at him unblinking for a good ten seconds, yawned, and released his wrist, before moving to stand. "Well, I'm fine." he sounded like he had a sore throat. "I haven't overdosed or anything, boss wouldn't let me. He keeps a close record of my intake." he said that like it was an everything . . .

"Boss? You mean your supplier?" Russet asked.

"Yeah, I work for him, he keeps me in supply." there was no emotion in his voice, he said it like he was discussing another day at work. That that was a little off-putting for Russet, who decided if the guy was OK, then he should probably leave.

"Well, if your fine, I'll be on my way." russet turned to leave, but was cut off.

"Were are you going?" The addict had managed to get in front of him, meaning he could move at least twenty feet in the time it took him to turn.

"What?" he asked, hiding his surprise.

"Your out here, it's . . . " he checked a watch on his left wrist. "almost ten o'clock, dark. You walking around unarmed, not from around. It's dangerous. Were are you going?"

Thinking for a second and seeing no point in lying, he answered. "I'm going to the other side of town to see if I can find somewhere to sleep."

The hooded man took a moment, seemingly taking in my response. "The hotels closed. They close at nine-thirty. You can sleep on the floor at my place." he turned around and started walking.

"What?" Russet asked surprised and more than a little nervous. How was he supposed to react to that? "What do you mea . . . "

The guy was in his face again, causing him to inhale sharply. "You can sleep on the floor at my place. Come on."

Realizing that there was no way he could run, russet followed. For how long had the drug user been carrying that katana, he wondered.

* * *

January eighth: Russet

"Why did I dream about that?" I wondered aloud as I returned to consciousness. Was it just sleeping on the floor that caused me to remember meeting Slen Lucien? I guess that may be it. I've hardly thought about him since . . . Now I feel horrible. What a way to start the day.

Getting up through the pressure in the back of my mind and the slight stone in my chest, I checked my watch. It was eight fifteen, I probably would have slept longer if I hadn't had that dream. _'Well, no helping it.'_ I sat up.

There was no way I was going to get back to sleep after that, so instead I tried to meditate. I had been trying to unlock my nen for several months now, since September if I remember properly, and I feel I've made good progress since then, I think that I'm only a little bit off, but the fact remains I haven't figured it out.

On the bright side, meditating like this seems to drive the sixth sense to overdrive, I can tell were everyone is, at least relative to me, anyway. This is a huge advantge in stealth senarios. The nature of what I'm doing gives me the impression that I'm using zetsu. After all, Gon figured it out by hiding from Hisoka, I'm sure that I could as well, but best not to get my hopes up.

After some time of just sitting in the corner meditating, trying to force open whatever I was closing to hide myself, I noticed someone approaching me. Opening my eyes, I stood up, began to fold up the sleeping bag, and waited.

Soon enough, the unmistakable image(or at least outfit) of Kurapika Kurta came around the corner. I stared at him without saying anything, which seemed to make him feel awkward if the visible sweet on his forehead was any indication. After several seconds of not saying anything, Kurapika decided to break the ice.

"Hello there."

My lips twitched in a motion that could be taken as either amused or unimpressed. "Hello. Any reason your over here?"

"Uh . . ." It's rare I'm not the awkward one in a conversation. "I wanted to congratulate you on your fight with the eagle yesterday."

I snorted and smirked. He was probably lying if how long it took him to answer was any indication. I should know, I've always been good at coming up with lies on the spot, something I've taken advantage of the past few months. I gave a half smile. "Really? Thanks."

And we were back to awkward. Really, it's fun to not to be the socially awkward one for once. He stood there for a few seconds, before finally asking. "How did you know I was watching you the other day?"

Ah, now were at the core of the issue. "I just felt the focus you were watching me with. I guess I've been able to sense others for months now." I looked off to the side as if I were thinking. "I was stuck in a rather dangerous city, and it was more or less a necessity."

"Really?" Kurapika sounded surprised. "It was that dangerous?"

My eyes drifted back to the soon-to-be-hunter. "Ever herd of Rivo city?"

He gained a thought full look. "You mean that large city in the middle of the Yorbian desserts? That Rivo?"

I gave a light snort and another half smile. "Yeah, that one. Let me tell you, the criminal eliment of that city is dangerous. If you were to pit every other mafia and criminal group in the world against that one city, well. The only way the world would win was with the phantom troup," I watched kurapika's nostrils flare and his body tense, "and the Zoldyck family."

Kurapika took a moment, whether to process this or to calm down, I don't know. "Has the phantom troupe ever been there?" He asked, a certin intent in his eyes I could only place because I knew his story.

Ah, now here's the question I'd been waiting for. "Yeah. They showed up and tried to rob one of the gangs about four years ago. They lost a member in retribution, and another when they fought this local armed detective agency."

Kurapika had a considering look on his face. He looked like he was about to ask me more questions, when he was cut off by music, followed my an announcement.

"I sincerely apologize for the long wait, the airship will be arriving at its next destination shortly." The announcers voice sounded out.

Turning from the speaker to Kurapika, I apologized. "sorry. Looks like well have to talk later." I picked up my backpack and headed for the exit. "See you if we both pass!"

As I went down the hall and neared the exit, I thought. _'what will I be facing this time?'_

 **AN: 10:57 PM, May 21st, 2018. Hello readers. I get the impression I have about 80 regular viewers at this point, looking at my "Traffic graph." There are few changes since last update, so I will simply repeat my request for inspiration (Is it to much to ask at this point?) and ask that you leave a review. Anything you dislike about my writing style? I just asking for attention here!(Insert anime tears) until next time!**


	7. Taxes, Infernos and Swordsmen, Oh-My!

**AN: 9:17 PM, May 22nd, 2018. Hello readers, I'd like to thank you for the reviews, but I'll wait until the end of the chapter to do so in case I get more. On a separate note, this story is officially the longest thing i have ever written, so I'm rather pleased with myself. Well, until the end of the chapter!**

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January eighth: Russet

Well. That was surprising. The announcer had just gotten past the "Get to the bottom of the tower in 72 hours thing, when I shifted back a foot and fell through the floor. Guess I was standing on a trapdoor. Brilliant! Guess I can't even try to help that rock-climber guy. After taking out my rage on the wall (or my knuckles) and sending a few silent insult's the way of the damned R.O.B. That sent me here, I went down the tunnel placed conveniently behind me.

After several minutes of walking alone, I reached a crossroads. In response, I pulled out a coin. Tossing the coin, i waited until it came back down and caught it between clapped hands. Opening my hands, I saw that the coin had been caught with the heads to the left and tails to the right. Flipping it again, it landed heads up. Guess I'm going left.

Walking down the corridor, I was forced to turn three times. First left, the right, then left again. I also had to go down a set of stairs. This led me to what appeared to be a platform maze. It was a large area with a bunch of five foot wide paths. Between the paths were pillars of fire. At first glance, they appeared to only be three feet tall, but after a moment of observation I realized that they were coming out from pits, and the paths were raised platforms. Looking in either direction, it appeared there was about two hundred feet in either direction before you reached the wall. The exit was about four hundred feet away, directly across from me.

 _'Looks like a maze. I hope the wall following rules are effective here.'_ I thought, beginning down with my eyes focused on the left side. It quickly became apparent this was going to take a long time, as over the next two hours I found myself constantly shifting myself from one side or another, and then back again, all in sweltering heat. _'Seriously, how long is this maze? It's like, craz . . . did the path behind me change?! It did! No wonder I keep running in circles!'_ I glared around, until I focused on a camera. That resulted in a chuckle.

"Ah, so you've figure it out huh? No basic wall following is going to help you here! The path cahnges between twenty five different patterns!" the chuckling voice asked. "Your going to have to figure out another way!"

I tilted my head to the side and sighed, a sigh to anyone who new me that I was mentally tired, or annoyed. "any hints." I asked in a tone that was half sarcastic, half annoyed.

"There's a set of maps in the very centre." He actually answered?! I turned to the camera so fast that I nearly gave myself whiplash, but there was no elaboration.

As I began walking again, however, he began talking. "By the way, did you notice how hot it is in here? Why it's ninety degrees Fahrenheit! And it's getting hotter each hour, soon enough it will be a hundred, then a hundred ten, and so on until you die of heat, so hurry up!"

I blinked twice as that sunk in, then impersonated my fathers cussing habits.

* * *

January eighth: Russet

In a corridor, surrounded in flame, connected to a room mad in the visage of hell, a man was crawling. This man was crawling on hand and knees, dripping so much sweat it looked like he came out of a pool. He was panting like he had just come out of the dessert, tongue lolling out of his mouth, eyes half dead. I am this man.

"Damn . . . damn . . . damn that room to hell! They could use it down there!" I ground out, as I made it through the door, into the nice, cool room beyond.

"Finally made it out, hmm? Well, that only took twelve hours, what was it, a hundred and fifteen Fahrenheit when you got out?" the total jack-ass at the controls said. "well, anyway good job! You made it through the first trial in only fourteen hours! Next one it right through that door!"

I ignored him in favour of resting on the ground. So cool . . .

I woke up some time, i don't know how much later, to the growling of my own stomach. Getting up, I opened my backpacks side pouch and grabbed a energy bar. Opening it . . . It had half melted, and was sticking to the wrapper. Insert another line of cursing at the fire maze here. After dealing with the sticky bar and sending thanks to the Lord that my grenades and other weapons hadn't went off, I continued down the tunnel.

At the end of this tunnel, was a gate, that appeared to have a combination lock. There were four coloured(Red, blue, yellow, green) locks altogether, each of which seemed to have seven numbers. Sitting next to the lock at what appeared to be a bank desk, was green haired a man in a prison uniform and glasses. He looked up. "Oh, so Here."

 **IAN: Introductory author note! Introducing Bine Greenburg. An economical criminal who used his accounting skills to run several small counties into the ground, making as much profit as he could in the process. Sentence: 187 years imprisonment.**

"Good. I am Mr. Greenburg, a temporary examiner. For each hour I keep you here, I get a year off of my sentence. Each of these piles of paper" he gestured to four coloured piles of paper, them being the same as the locks. "Is a set of taxes. Find out how much is owed in each pile. The amount owed will be the answer to the lock. Get any of them wrong, and you have to start over with a new set of taxes." He returned to his papers.

Taking a look at the red papers, and looking at the size of the pile, I was thankful that math was my best subject.

* * *

January Eighth: Russet

Well. That only took nine hours. If my memory serves, that means that I have nearly . . . actually, I don't know how long I was asleep, so I have no idea how long I've been here. Better check my watch. OK. So, if the exam started at roughly ten, and it is now just after one . . . I was asleep for six hours, and I've been in here for twenty five.

Satisfied with my conclusion, I continued on my way. I had a little under two days to complete the exam.

The next tunnel was a large spiral staircase. I do have to wonder how much nen went into making this tower, its way to big. I mean, that phantom troupe member conjured several buildings on the spot, and that guy from the ant arc made a whole dimensional area, so making a area bigger on the inside than the outside should be possible. I wonder if I could do something like that? No, I should find out what class of nen I have first.

What class would I have? I'm definitely no enhancer, I'm for from simple minded. I can be whimsical, and am rather good at deceiving others, but wouldn't call that a main trait. I can be argumentative, extremely logical, to the point that it messes with my emotions sometimes, but I'm not very protective of my family. I have a very short temper, but I have a good handle on it, and I am VERY detail oriented. I cab be stoic, but I don't know if I'm high strung. I'm also sure I'm not that charismatic, or hide my true self, so probably not a specialist. So that's a maybe on roughly half of them, using Hisoka's test. Guess I'll have to wait. Oh look, next challenge.

The room I came into reminded me of one of the fighting stages in soul calibur. It was three rectangular platforms, rising two feet out of the water. Each one was about thirty feet long and twenty wide. On each platform, there was a person in a rob. Connecting each platform, as well as the dock at the entrance and exit, was a path only about two feet wide.

Seeing my entry, the man on the platform closest to me stood up from his sitting position.

"Hello I am Kerlo, a substitute proctor for the third stage." He said. "The rules are simple. You have to get past each of us to carry on, or the door on the other side of the arena will stay locked. If you knock one of us into the water, or knock us unconscious, then you may move onto the next one. However, if you fall into the water yourself, then you must start from scratch. Should we be unconscious, or to injured to fight, then you may continue on without fighting us. If you are unconscious or to injured to fight, then, well, you can guess. Lethal force isn't aloud, crippling and maiming force is. All weapons are allowed, with the exception of firearms.. Begin!"

 **IAN: An Introductory authors note! Introducing Kerlo Klouse! Neo-nazi, racist extremest and former solider. Arrested for several war crimes against civilians of different skin colour. Sentence, 245 years.**

Looking at the man as he threw off his robes, I saw he was a blonde haired, blue eyed man with a build like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a combat knife. OK, so probably a trained soldier, if the stance is anything to go off of. No lethal force, but . . . is that a . . . yes, it's a swastika on his right shoulder. Is Hitler a person here? Yes, I seem to remember someone mentioning him. Does that make this guy a neo-nazi? I hope so, I've already taken off the kid gloves.

Letting my backpack slide to the floor, I shifted my body just enough to feel my concealed weapons were where they were supposed to be, and then walked forward onto the platform. I've dealt with scarier people before, bu I shouldn't get to arrogant. This guy may be strong enough to tear me to pieces.

I stood at the edge of the arena, hands in my pockets, a certain casualness about me. I get the feeling I'm not fooling Mr Aryan here though, so I guess he can tell I have a few tricks up my sleeve. After several minutes of standing around, he finally lunged at me, using short but fast steps, knife raised for an overhead blow. In the time it took for him to reach me, I crouched down, and shot forward, ducking under and to the left of his strike, before rotating and kicking at the back of his knee.

Following through with my momentum, I pulled a switchblade hidden in a lighter out of my pocket, holding reverse grip, and did a downward stab at his shoulder as he staggered. He jumped forward, most likely sensing my intent, and turned to face me, now pulling his limbs closer together in what I recognized as a defensive stance as I backed away, putting distance between us.

Now standing in the centre of the area, I stared him down. For my plan to work, I needed to get him off balance near the edge, which would of course be a problem, seeing as that would be the last place he would go if he was trying to prolong the fight . . .

He charged me again, seeing that I was patient enough to wait him out, and only slowed down when he got near me, taking advantage of his greater reach, afforded by both his arms and army knife, in order to send several thrust's at me when I couldn't block because of my knifes small size. I sidestepped his first two thrusts, then stepped into guard area, grabbed his arm with my left hand, and used the momentum of my turn to throw him to the ground, where he rolled and was back on his feet in an instant. I took advantage of the momentary distraction to back away to just short of the edge, barely four feet away. This plan would be useless after the first time I used it, or the moment I got into the water.

I stood at the edge of the arena, knife held in a basic reverse grip. Now or never.

* * *

January Ninth: Kerlo

Kerlo was cautious. His opponent had retreated to the edge of the arena, and fallen into a stance that sacrificed defence for offence. Considering his knife was only three inches long, that wasn't a bad idea, as it would be had to block or deflect his knife with a weapon that short.

But there was something off about the way this man was fighting. His stance showed he had practised, and he had seen him toss and catch his weapon, without looking, right after he pulled it out. This showed he could quickly switch between a normal and reverse grip. But, he hadn't.

Anyone with real combat experience knew reverse grips were only useful in very specific circumstances, such as downward stabs. While it was true a mastered reverse grip style could lend an element of unpredictability to ones style, his opponent had shown nothing to indicate he had the necessary skill. Meaning he was either an overconfident amateur who didn't know how over his head he was, or he had a plan.

The most obvious thing he could think of was that a reverse grip made it easier to swipe at someone who was close to your side, so long as it was the right side, so he may be trying to use the treat of the blade to make him stumble off the edge. But that was just one of multiple possibilities.

Another thing that had him cautious was that, weather he was aware of it or not, the hooded man had unleashed borderline-killing-intent multiple times during there exchange, showing he was focusing on something that would be harmful to him intensely enough that his intent bleed out. The . . . mechanical feeling it had also lent itself to the plan theory.

All these thought shot through the experienced soldiers mind as he tried waiting out his opponent a third time. In the end the young man just stood there, never taking his eyes off of him, to the point were he was winking each eye individual rather than winking, so as to keep one eye on him at all times. The only sign of any form of distress was the sweat on his brow.

Finally, he decided to make his move. If he was knocked into the water, then he was confident in his associates ability to give him a second try, and he doubted that there was any way for him to get knocked unconscious or otherwise incapacitated by his opponent, unless he got ham-stringed, which was unlikely given the switchblades reach and how awkward the blow would be.

Charging forward, he immediately took a swing at the brunettes head, causing him to duck, then threw a kick at him, surprising him and catching him in the hip and staggering him and making him step two feet closer to the edge. However, there was some resistance. _'Is here wearing armour under there?'_ pausing to make that thought was a major mistake, one he would latter tribute to being rusty from three years in a cell . . . once he regained the ability to speak, that is.

The man took the moments hesitation to do a crouch, and throw his full body weight into a kick at his knee, using the momentum generated by his hips. The blow slammed into him like a baseball-bat, and as he registered the pain, he was grabbed by the right arm, and with a pull by his foe's full bodyweight, was pulled in a full circle, feet scrambling, and nearly shoved off the edge, where he balanced precariously at the bring of falling off.

As he waved his arms around, the brunet pulled a sack from were it was hidden under his hoodie on his back, the paper making a tearing sound that brought his attention to it. From the paper billowed a powder of some kind, the dust filling the air between him and his opponent. Just as the power reached his wide eyes, it exploded.

 _'BoooM!'_

* * *

January ninth: Russet

Smirking to myself, I watched as the explosion knocked my opponent into the water. The dust was a powerful explosive, and when ignited by the lighter half of my switchblade, which had remained in reverse grip so as to maintain the ability to easily light, had sent him flying. He spent so much time focusing on the blade, he completely ignored the less obvious threat of the lighters flame. Of course, the blast had shook me up a little, and I now had a minor burn on the hand that lit it,

but in the end, I had won without anything more serious than minor irritations. And form how Mr Nazi is floating face down in the water, I'd say he's out. As this crossed my mind, a panel opened in the wall and what appeared to oompa-loompa's came rowing out in a boat, fished him out of the water with a large hook, and sailed into another panel, causing me to do an anime style sweat-drop.

Turning back the way I had come, I go back to my backpack and take off my hoodie, followed by my other concealed weapons. I probably wouldn't get the chance to use them in the next fight, as they would be wary after I pulled the explosion trick. That meant I would have to use my "walking stick" this round and my vine's for the last one.

Taking out my walking sticks pieces, I felt it's weight in my hands. My walking stick was actually made of three separate pieces, with there being multiple configurations with various length, weight, and tricks depending on what pattern I used. Lets hope I chose the right pattern for this match. It was currently about four and a half feet long, and had a weighted metal sphere at the top. At first glance, it appeared absolutely normal, aside from some decorative metal lines at the lower end.

Walking back across the empty first arena and into the second, I partially wished that I had put a flotation device in my hood. That way it wouldn't get in my way if I fell in the water. As it was I would have to fight without the added protection on my upper body, on the bright side, I wont be slowed down anymore.

As I stepped into the arena, my opponent threw off her robes, revealing that she wasn't actually that much older than me. She was a . . . violet-et? with a bob cut, with blue eyes and wearing mascara, a bodysuit that made me think of black widow, and carried a twelve-foot whip in her right hand and a tanto in the left.

 **IAN: An introductory authors note! Introducing Hana Shirokaze. Crimes include petty theft, grand theft, resisting arrest, escaping imprisonment and assault. Sentence, twenty five years.**

She stared at me dispassionately, before whipping at me with the whip(if it wasn't obvious.) I jumped over it, but to my surprise it seemed to change direction and wrap around my ankle. With a near casual flick of her wrist, she sent me careening into the water. Pulling myself dripping from the water, glad I had forgone my "walking sticks" taser attachment, I shook as much water off of myself as I could and took a better defensive stance.

Waiting for her to attack again, I kept my eyes locked on her whip, trying to keep her in my line of sight as she paced back and forth. This time when she whipped at me, I managed to catch it, the whips wrapping around the staff at wicked speed. I tried to pull it out of her grip, only to be hauled of my feet. I now know how my sisters dog feels when I drag it off its feet and swing her around while we play tug of war . . . 'splash!'

I pulled myself out of the water, taking longer this time. OK, two loses. Glad to know I wasn't wrong about the difficulty curve of these fights . . . OK. Lets see what we can find in the third round.

Walking back to my opponent, I stood back, waiting for my hands to dry. The water proof coating on the stick prevented it from rotting, but wasn't great for grip, so I should try stalling until I can get my hands at least moderately dry. You know, maybe I should have swam back to the start and waited a bit . . . to late now.

This time, I began walking around while spinning the stick, while wiping my hands down it every few seconds just to test of slippery it was at that time. Actually, maybe I could use the slickness to my advantage.

Taking a sudden dash forward, the staff weapon still rotating, I managed to grab the whip near the front with my left hand right before she could attack, giving a harsh yank on it as I did so. I stepped as close as I could before she recovered, and swung at her with all the strength I had, letting the handle slip through my fingers as I did so, extending my reach, and only tightening my grip at the last few inches, forcing her to duck.

She quickly counter attacked at me with the tanto, but I got the definite impression that she was less experienced with it than the whip, seeing as how, even taking into account how she was much stronger and faster than me, I was able to deflect the first overhead swing with a simple motion even though my arm was at an awkward angle, and the follow up stab was so over broadcast-ed that an amateur could see it coming.

Taking a step back, I kept myself in the narrow area were I was outside of her tanto's range and to close for her whip to gain momentum. Actually, her weapon combination isn't that great against a mid range weapon. Making this a worse scenario for her. _'No, I shouldn't get over confident. Just because her last three attacks were easily dodged and lacked momentum doesn't mean that she doesn't still have options.'_

Sure enough, she quickly wrapped the whip around her wrist to shorten it, before taking another swipe at me. I tried to dodge to the right of were I estimated the _'crack'_ would happen, be she suddenly interrupted her own wipe with her right arm, the interruption changing the arc causing the whip the hit me in the face. Good thing that changing the arc bleed of momentum, because that carved a gouge across my cheek that may scar.

Rubbing at the blood now trailing down my face with the back of my wrist, I grit my teeth. I really hate it when I get injured in obvious places. I guess I'm a little vain. A funny thought runs through my head, and I take a moment to snort. "You know, I guess some men would enjoy this. Being stuck in a room with a girl in leather with a whip, that is."

She made the first sign of emotion I had seen in the time I've known her. She got an angry look in her eyes and a slight blush dusted over her nose and cheeks. _'Oh, so that got her to react? I wounder how far I can push it?'_

* * *

January Nineth: Hana

 _'Did he just . . . !? why you little . . . ! No Hana, keep your temper, the last time someone got to you you ended up in here, you can't afford to get worked up!'_

Ignoring her internal monologue, the man in front of here continued unconcerned. "I mean, I really shouldn't insult other peoples taste, if your into that sort of thing that's your business!"

 _'Shut up you . . . !'_ She grit her teeth and resisted the urge to drop her weapons and strangle her opponent. Instead she settles for taking advantage of the opening his casual stance left and swipe her whip at his left shoulder. The blow was barely blocked, and when she flicked her wrist, sending the whip coiling to the right, she managed to get the whip into the perfect position to entrap his legs.

Quickly capitalizing on this, she swung to the left viciously, the man trying to jump aside but still getting the nearest leg entangled, causing him to stumble and fall onto his chest. With a powerful heave, she lifted him off the ground and began swinging him around her in a circle three times before flicking her wrist, untangling the whip and allowing him to fly into the rooms wall.

In a surprising display of agility, he flipped himself a one-eighty degrees with a powerful kick of his legs and slammed into the wall foot first, and kicked off into the water before the momentum could wear off and let him fall in naturally.

It took him about ten seconds to get back to the edge and climb back up. "You know, If you want to sweep an man of of his feet, you'll need something different, the whole BDSM thing _will_ work on some people, but me? HUGE turn off, you know? " he had a arrogant smirk on his smug little face as he said that, closing his eyes and shrugging as emphasis.

A powerful blow to the stomach from her whip was her response, the blow both causing him to spit up a little bile and fly ass-over-teakettle into the water. He was back up in about three seconds, climbing back out and flicking water onto the ground.

"You know, show more . . . universal, show more skin, act flirty, actually speak, the silent dominatrix just isn't cutting it." he walked forward causally, holding his weapon one handed, not that that stopped him from intercepting her next few swings, which were cumming with less and less time between them, before it could reach its maximum arc. His casual comment's just pissed her off more.

"Also, you may want to let" _'Crack!'_ "your hair grow out, you" _'Whap!'_ "look kind of boyish wi" _'Clack'_ "th it short, the makeup doesn't help" _'Whack!'_ ", I mean sure it was probably a rush job," He ducked under the next swing, the whip whistling by with a _'whoosh!'_ "But still, you look like my niece applied it!"

"Shut up!" Hana finally screamed, begging to swing erratically, her opponent seemingly able to block every one of them.

"What?" _'Clack!'_ "It's true." _'Crack!'_ "You really should do something about that temper!" _'CA-Crack!'_ the strongest blow yet put a few cracks in the stone floor, but he side-stepped it.

"I mean seriously!" _'CLA-Clack!'_ her blows were getting stronger but more predictable with every comment . . . "With an attitude like that" '' he rolled aside of her blow "you'll never get anybody that ain't an M!" with that comment three things happened.

One. Hana screamed "SHUT UP!" and swung with everything she had, emitting blood-lust the whole while.

Two. The enemy stepped forward, his hands twisting the handle of his weapon, causing it to extend two feet, bringing the whole thing to six and a half feet long.

And three. The whip slammed into the staff just above where his hand was, and wrapped around it tightly just below the metal sphere on the end(Though it did connect with his shoulder, tearing a bloody gouge).

What followed was a tug of war. While the stronger of the two, Hana was only five foot two, and rather slender, making her far lighter than her opponent, something he took full advantage of, throwing his entire weight, made worse by the fact he was dripping wet, the opposite direction she was pulling.

Shifting her weight slightly, Hana cursed herself for getting so worked up. If she were to paying attention, she would have realized that was because she was doing a heavy wind up for each swing and that was giving her target area away, and she had even dropped the tanto so she could do two handed swings, but hind-sights twenty twenty.

With a smirk, the man suddenly shifted the angle of his grip, he took a step closer while angling the staff so that the bottom was next to the taut whip. _'what is he doi . . .'_

With a lightning motion, a blade almost two feet long emerged from the staffs bottom end, the blade rotating into place with enough force to sever her whip in two halfway down it's length, causing her to fall onto her back, were she rolled back to her feet, her insticts screamed to duck, just in time as the now-spear(Naganata)'s bottom, with the metal sphere, came uncomfortably close to her head.

Before she could get him back into her line of sight, he used the momentum of his one-handed swing to rotate his whole body around (which left his back open, but she couldn't take advantage at her current angle) and kicked her in the side of her stomach, staggering her.

Rather that continue to attack her at an angle, he charged in close as she regained he footing, going to slam the middle of the spear-haft into her head, but she managed to catch it holding it at length. Unfortunately, it appears he planned that, as his foot slammed into her solar plexus, causing her to release her grip and chock. In the moment it took her to recover, he stepped forward, looped his weapon behind her head, and dragged he faced first into his rising knee-cap, breaking her nose.

She staggered back holding the broken appendage, eyes clenched shut in pain, managed to wrench said eyes open, and saw . . .

* * *

January ninth: Russet

My spear's butt slammed into her temple with a loud 'Crack' knocking her to the ground, were she lay still. I hope I didn't do to much damage. I just need her unconscious long enough for me to fight the final enemy. _'Come to think of it, there were no little orange people this time, so chances are that if she regains consciousness I'll have to fight her again. Better beat the last guy before she does then, I got lucky she dropped the tanto the first time.'_

After checking her pulse, I returned to the start, to grab my back-pack. Picking it up, I carried it back to the third ring before setting it down. I pulled out my "secret weapon," now wrapped in a bandage cloth so as to hide its form. The cloth would so much as slow it down, but it kept my opponent from finding out what it was.

Taking one last glance at the girl, I walked across the path to the final arena, were the last opponient awaited. Somehow, I got the feeling he hadn't moved an inch since I came in. The rustling of his cloak as he rose caused me to tense, both hands now on the vine. I watched as long blonde locks of hair fell from beneth the hood. He unclasped the cloak.

I stood in shock. Piercing blue eyes? Check. Long _very_ dirty blonde hair? Check. A sheath with WAY to many sword? Check. And, he just took out a toothpick and put it between his teeth. I'm screwed, aren't I?

 **IAN: An introductory author note! Introducing Mifune, for soul eater! . . . Who needs no further introduction.**

 **AN: 2:19 AM, May 27th, 2018. Well, sorry about the wait! I guess a power outage can really throw off a guy's schedule! But hey, I think this may be the longest chapter yet . . . 5343 words! And, a new crossover character! Now, my reviews! I now have seven!**

 **First of all, candy4beth, I know your greedy from your username, but asking for more immediately after I post? For shame.**

 **To uub, Thanks for the compliments, and yes, I am keeping the backstory and stuff vauge on purpose. I hope you like what I have planned!**

 **To Lirg123, don't worry about the OC's and Ideas anymore . . . unless you want to, I will still accept if anyone has a good idea, but I mainly left that as review/PM bait to be honest, I have little confidence in my own motivation.**

 **OK, I think that's it! Good! My mothers going to get me early tomorrow morning and I stayed up late to get this done, so I hope your happy! I'm going to bed . . .**


	8. Slen Lucien

**AN: 8:47, May 27th, 2018. OK. I have rested, and am ready to start the next chapter. I hope you the last chapter was . . . well I don't know, really, I'm just trying to find something to put here, so I should probably just start the chapter.**

* * *

January Ninth: Russet

Mifune's attacks were fast, precise, powerful, and most of all, lazy. The shear causality he swung his sword around with was both impressive and terrifying, especially since I was certain he was aiming for the area's I dodged out of, rather than at me. That is to say, he's just swinging in my general direction to test my reflexes, rather than actually attacking.

I ducked under an overhead swing that was perfectly horizontal. The next one was perfectly vertical, which I stepped to the left to avoid. I jumped. Stepped left. Stepped right. Fell flat on my back and flipped backwards unto my feet. Dived to the side and rolled. I could never stop moving, never place both hands on the vine's handle, I didn't have any chance to use it. And he's so causal about it that there's no way he's going all out.

I jump and scramble back and put as much distance between the two of us as possible, hopping that he doesn't follow. I need time to plan, I need time to rest. I've been moving non stop since the start of the fight, without a chance to rest in any form. It appears that he could care less if i about knocking me out of the arena, simply swinging at me.

As I hover at the edge, I'm relieved to see he hasn't followed me. I look at him. He's looking at me with a certain tenseness. After a few seconds, he speaks. "You. You've meet a master swordsman before, haven't you?"

My eyes widen and

 _Bullets. Machine guns. Falling like rain, cut clean in half by the hundreds._

 _Blood flashes like water fountains._

 _A slight smirk. Half asleep eyes._

" _I'm totally worthless as a person, but as a weapon? I'm unbeatable."_

I inhale deeply. "Yeah, that guy was plain out crazy. He'd rip you to pieces." I honestly felt that . . .

He looked me in the eye for a moment, before nodding and taking a stance. That was scary as he _hasn't been using one_ until now. "Then stop holding back, that weapon in your hand has tricks like the last few, right?"

I braced both of my feet, and leaned my body to the optimal level. I placed both hands on the handle, and pressed the buttons, and watched as the vines whipped, cloth scattering in a dozen pieces, into the ground were Mifune was . . . just a second ago.

With a blur and an explosion of air, he was above me, and with a press of my buttons, so were the vines. With another explosion, he was gone, my vines clutching at empty air. Now he was using some degree of effort . . . good, that will make this easier. My vines began whipping around in a terrible frenzy, the momentum proving enough to force me to fall to my knees just to maintain my grip.

Every time Mifune paused for even the briefest instant, my vines closed in on him. I hope that he doesn't start cutting the vines, I know he probably could, chances are the only reason he hasn't is to give me a fighting chance, after all, hes not going all out, and hasn't been at any point. After all, he's only using one katana.

Bracing myself, I begin to give more and more complex commands, hoping to back him into a corner, but he continued to dodge, at times jumping out of the arena and off the wall before jumping in. He even leaped off of my vines, staggering me for a moment before I could regain my footing. But he never capitalized.

By this point in time, I was on autopilot, meaning I could let my mind wander. Why was Mifune here? What was his drive? In soul eater, his goal was to defend their little witch, but there was no sign of her here. I suppose that he had criminal history before that, but still. The crossovers I've meet before have similar but still partly different backstories, but still seem to have a lot in common personality wise, but even that's not stone . . .

Mifune came down above me, only to be force to kick of of my vine, loosing his momentum in the process, and returned to out little supersonic game of tag. During a moment when The vines were close to still, I noticed a tear in the skin of one of the vines. At this rate, it will be decided by attrition, and unfortunately my vines are flat out starved, I can't win. If I don't stop soon, then my vines may be permanently damaged, they were _not_ made for constant fast movements.

Sighing, I slowed my continuous attacks to a crawl, and then stopped entirely, Mifune coming to a stop as well. "You've stopped, why?"

I gave a light snort, and my eyes grew melancholy. "The vine can't keep up the strain, it will start tearing itself apart if I keep pushing it. This was a battle of endurance, and there's no way I can win at this point, not with the resources I have on hand. I mean what am I going to do, throw the pipe bomb at you and hope it hits?" I had a sarcastic look on my face.

"I see." Mifune put away his sword and sat down. "so your quitting."

"More or less, If I think my vine has recovered, then I may try again, but that's assuming miss whip doesn't wake up."

Mifune nodded at my explanation, seemingly satisfied. I myself laid down on the ground, my vines re-coiled into their baseball-bat shape and left just out of the area I could reach without getting up.

After a good five minutes of just laying there, Mifune opened his eyes, His presence flaring for an instant, and asked me. "What are you doing here?"

I opened my eyes. "What?"

"Why are you here, at the exam I mean." He was looking at me with an expression I couldn't quite place. "You don't give me the impression of someone who would put there life on the line for something, so logically you would wait until you were skilled enough that you were sure you could pass, but your here anyway. What drove you to come take the exam early?"

I pursed my lips, considered it for a moment, then pulled myself into a sitting position. I pointed to the digital watch on my left wrist(Which was fortunately waterproof.) "Was confronted by a someone who's fortunes had never been wrong, and told I would face a horrible monster after a certain amount of time. This watch is a countdown until that meeting will supposedly take place." I gesture to the watch, which showed a rather long list of numbers. "I've done the math. I have until July next year to become strong enough to escape or survive. I'm here because I want to at least die on my own terms."

"I see. So you don't think you can survive without being a hunter?" He asked me.

I response I said one word. "Nen."

In response to that word, Mifune stated, eyes snapping open and inhaling sharply. "How did you know about that?" considering how well he reacted to my comment, I'm actually surprised by how calm he sounded.

I smiled a half hearted smile. There was no real emotion behind it, I just find that it's an easier to maintain poker-face than what a blank look. "You'd be surprised by how many people out there know how to use it, especially in the mafia community, it's actually rather surprising." That was the truth, didn't mean that was how I found out but the otherworldly could be left out of this conversation. He nodded slowly.

"So, you think you'll need nen to survive?" he asked, his calm face restored.

I nodded. "The fact is that I don't think I have the potential to survive, there are real monsters in this world that no one could defeat with the power of the body alone. There has to be a way around that though. A way to drive yourself to new heights. What better way then your will and spirit manifest? If I have nen . . . maybe, I can make myself into something . . . better. Better that this lazy man who sits around all day with his nose in a book, complaining at the slightest inconvenience, who it took a threat to his life to get off of his lazy rear and and to actually do something. You know, more has happened to me in the last six months than in my intire life before? I don't know weather to feel proud of that fact or . . . "

A feeling like warm water rushing over my body. My mind failed me for a moment, freezing in the way it always did when I was surprised. Looking at my hands, I saw that my whole body was cloaked in a white glow, practically spraying out of me. I felt as if a faucet that had been stuck on either off, of a trickle, had been suddenly opened full blast. The sensation was both exhausting and exhilarating.

After a few seconds, I realized that it was a bad idea to let ones life energy to flow from your body like that, so I did the same thing I did when I suppressed my presence, and watched as the flow began to ebb. Focusing harder, I finally reigned it in completely, and entered what I believe to be a state of zetsu. I opened my eyes and stared at my hands, now feeling oddly . . . dull? Dark? No, I Can't think of a word to describe it.

Looking to Mifune, I spoke. "You initiated me." It was not a question.

He nodded. "Yes, I saw that you were on the brink of awakening and gave you the push to get over the edge. Some people have there aura pores clogged, and have to go through far more work that usual to get them open. You already had the necessary control other wise."

I gave him an expressionless look. "Why?"

"For every hour we stall you, we get a year taken off of our sentence. Should you quit here, then I, and "Miss whip"" he smiled a bit at that. "Will be allowed to leave."

"And what about the blonde?"

"His sentence is over two hundred years. You don't butcher a half dozen family's and get away that easily."

After taking that in, I snorted, got to my feet, and picked up my vines by the area just bellow the handle. "Well, even eith nen, there's no way I could ever beat you as I am, so I guess there's no other choice." I raised both hands palm up in the air. "I give up." I smiled, and after a few seconds, A panel opened in the wall, and a path leading to it came out. Giving Mifune a salute, I walked out of there with my hands in my pocket . . . before rushing back it, grabbing my backpack and walking back out as the samurai laughed a laugh that brought back a half dozen memories.

* * *

January ninth/July nineteenth(Flashback): Russet

It had been almost three weeks since the man called Russet had started to stay with the drug addict. His apartment was . . . well, a lot cleaner than you would expect. Although it was rather spartan. There were no unnecessary pieces of furniture whatsoever. In fact, Slen(it had taken him three days to find the guys name) had admitted that the only reason that he didn't give russet a couch to sleep on was because he didn't own a couch in the first place.

Russet's thought 's on Slen, were somewhat conflicted. On one hand, he was nice enough to let Russet stay at his place without paying him (saying he had more money then he needed). On the other, he was an all but unrepentant(He admitted he was horrible) drug abuser who gave Russet the distinct impression that he was a high ranking member of a drug cartel. Overall, he didn't know enough to make a final verdict.

What he did know was that Slen was dangerous. And not just in the "I could kill you" sense. He was in the "I could kill you, the guy next to you, and the guy half a mile that way watching us through the scope of a snipe rifle before any of you realize whats happening" sense. He figured this out from Slen's training routine.

Now Slen spent most of his time asleep, watching TV in an admittedly comfortable easy chair, or high on some king of hallucinogen. He didn't appear to have a job, and would disappear at odd hours, sometime not to return until the middle of the night. If not the next day. But one thing was always one hundred percent certain. At High noon, he would, no matter what, get up, and start to train.

It would start with putting on this suit made of hollow metal. Apparently the thing weighed about twenty pounds on its own, and had an internal volume of about three gallons. Apparently he started out by filling it up with various liquids, and had worked his way up. It was now filled with murcury. A gallon of mercury weighs a hundred and ten pounds, meaning the whole thing was over three hundred and fifty pounds. And he did ALL of his exorcises in them.

He did his twenty kilometre jog in that suit(concealed under baggy clothing). He was back in ten minutes, barely winded. He did his pushups in that suit. He had a bar on the floor he held on to, as his own momentum would send him flying otherwise. He did three push-ups a second for ten minutes. The same for the situps. And the squats. And the pull ups. And the vertical push-ups. He apparently had to get the bars in his house replaced once a month at minimum. The whole exorcise room was padded.

The, after all that, the training sword was brought out. The thing looked like an average, everyday shinai, with the exception of that it was made out of metal. But he swung it so fast . . . Russet was certain that he was going through his full kendo kata several times a second, his whole body a blur. Then a few days ago, he had tried to pick up the Shinai. he could barely lift it with both hands. Meaning that that shinai most likely weighs more than Russet did.

And Slen? He swings it one handed (How does the momentum nut throw him off his feet?) For an hour non stop, switches to the left had, repeats, and then does two hours going through attack patterns. Often so fast I can only tell he's there from the explosions of air. No wonder the floors are deserted for a fair bit in both directions! Even the padding isn't enough to keep the noise down.

Yes, one thing was certain. Slen was far stronger than anyone I had ever meet before. All things considered, he's most likely on the same level as one of the Zoldyck's butlers, as a bare minimum.

Now that Russet had seen what he's capable of, Russet has been doing a lot more exercise, and ends most days exhausted. The door to the apartment opened, Slen walking in. "Exercising again?" He asked in his usual lazy, dispassionate voice.

"Yeah, I told you before, Life's on a countdown, I have to push myself as hard as I can without hurting myself." Slen's reaction was to nod before going to go to the TV. "Oh, thanks again on the advice on my schedule by the way." Slen paused, nodded in recognition, and continued to the net room. Say what you want about the addict, he new his exorcise.

Finishing his exorcise, Russet got to his feet, and walked into the next room. There was Slen, watching a children show that reminded russet somewhat of George Shrinks in its premise, a miniature body and his life. Of course, the show was based with a family of park rangers and also had several hold over facts, such as the main character having enhanced strength because his muscles had to deal with less weigh and such, and often had nature trivia

He new all this because Slen had roped him into watching it, said it was a favourite from his childhood. The man seemed to be trapped in his own nostalgia like that. He seemed to obsessively pursue things that brought up childhood memories. He honestly wondered what had happened, if anything, to make the normally drug addled man so . . . subconsciously obsessive about things from his past.

So absorbed in his show, he didn't notice Russet walk in (of course, it is possible he was simply ignoring him), paying more atention to the main character riding a red-squirrel through the trees, with a light smile on his face. Thinking back on it, these were the only times, aside from his especially corny jokes, that Russet had seen Slen smile.

Although, all things considered, that wasn't that surprising. Russet new, there was a reason Slen always took his katana when he went out at night. The diving compass. Renga Gildarian's gang. Know for using drugs, murder, and blackmail. They were arguably the worst group in town, with a large percent of their profit in early days coming from drug money and forced prostitution. Many of their operative seemed to act like zombies. The five most dangerous men of this organization were known as "The Five Evils," led by the "Evil of Desire", Renga himself.

The evil of the north, "Grudge." a man who stood a solid seven feet tall, seemed to have metal skin, and had metal spikes coming out of practically everything. He would take any excuse to maim and kill others, there were many stories of him killing people who had bumped into him and not apologized. His title was born for the fact that he would begrudge anyone for the slightest indiscretion.

The evil of the east, obsession, was a woman who had several "Yandere" tendencies, and seemed to favour blades. She was clearly insane and, fitting her name, was flat out ruthles in her pursuit of pretty much anything that caught her fancy. Her appearance seemed to change drastically every time she appeared, but her height, five foot six, remained the same.

The evil of the west, was know as "Denial". He was know for the fact that he seemed to believe that there was no truth in the world, except for death, and was often described as carrying a large shield, and wearing a suit of armour. He appeared to believe nothing anyone ever told him, unless it was forced. He apparently had the power to kill those who lied to him.

Finally, the sin of the south. "Indifference." He was known for never reacting to anything that happened around him, remaining "indifferent" to anything that was not his orders. He was described as a man of average height, wearing a hoodie, jeans, a metal mask, and carrying a katana. He was known for following orders without question, never speaking.

And after seeing the live news four days ago, I have no doubt that Slen Lucien is "The Evil of Indiference." I'd recognize the katana anywhere.

 **AN: 10:32 PM, May 31st, 2018. Well, That took longer than usual. And the chapter isn't really that good, if you ask me. Oh well. Let's hope the next one turns out better . . .**

 **So, I lost. How many of you saw this coming? Not may I hope. Why did I say that now? My heads been all over the place recently. I should probably just respond to the review first.**

 **king gilgamesh. I can definitely see were your coming from, and Ill see if I can resolve those issues later. Funny that you'd bring this up just as we reach the flashback saga . . .**


	9. How to Brain a Hit-Man

**AN: 8:33 PM, June 1st, 2018. Well, time to start the next chapter. I'm glad to see that T-man 5000 has updated his SI just a few hours ago, glad to see that he's doing fine . . . mabey I should send in a review? He has few enough He'd probably notice . . . yeah, I will later, for now I should write this.**

 **In the last few chapters, one of the commentators, king gilgamesh I think, said that he felt that I was trying to hard to make myself mediocre in an anime world after months of training, and the lack of backstory made him boring. I do admit to making my character seem weaker than everyone else, but that is a result of myself trying to imagine what I would be able to accomplish in that time. The most impressive thing I've ever done is forty push ups, so I don't have the most confidence in my personal strength, so I went out of my way to downplay myself. Hopefully this next chapter changes, as he will be fighting some street level thugs for comparison, and the next few chapters will be backstory heavy.**

* * *

January eleventh: Russet

 _'C-clack, c-clack, c-clack,-c-clack . . . '_

I walked down the street of the Dolle harbour, enjoying the sound of my own feet clacking off the pavement. I had returned here to recover my other equipment. Not having a place to stay can be a real pain, seeing as you have to cart all your possessions everywhere you go. And for the exam, I had to find a place to hide over half of my stuff for around a month, so I had to find somewhere safe. Failing that I made somewhere safe.

Reaching the edge of town, I wandered into the woods to the east of town, heading for a group of five twisted trees about a kilometre and a half in . . . I should have just said a mile. A mile into the woods, there are five twisted trees. To the left of the trees, is a boulder. This boulder is short, and wide, but I'm confident it weight at least a ton. It took me a while to flip it over, the oversized thing, but I managed to pull it off, and buried my stuff underneath it, before flipping it back to leave no sign of my passage(aside from the pile of dirt with no hole).

Reaching the large rock, I look it over again. It's about six inches to a foot tall, and ranges from five to seven feet wide at various points. It's about eight feet long. Slipping my hands under it, I lift with all my might. "Urk!" it's as heavy as I remember it . . .

It took me three tries to shift the rock into a vertical position, but when I did, all it took to tip it over was a firm shove, the rock falling back unto the ground with a dull rumble and crash. In the centre of the plant-less area that outlined the rocks former location was a spot were the drift was discoloured, showing were I had buried my things. As I didn't have a shovel, I just scrapped the dirt aside with my hands, mental complaining about how I should have brought a digging instrument after seeing the stains on my hands.

After rubbing as much dirt off as I could, I pulled the large plastic bag I buried my stuff in. Opening the bag, I removed my things. The first was a "Dino-Laptop" as i liked to put it. It was far heavier than a "Modern" (by my standards) laptop at fifteen pounds. It was build to last tho, and I wouldn't be scared to use it to block a punch . . . or a bullet, really, it's a tough sucker. The thing is actually rather fast to, conects wireless and all that. I guess I shouldn't make fun of it.

The next thing of note is a large, locked box. It's extremely heavy, a side affect of the thick material. I keep at least sixty percent of my assets liquid, so I got the most heavy duty chest I could find. My pipe bomb would barely dent this thing . . .

Other ting include my cloths, my packet watch (which was a gift from my sister) and a . . .

"Complete timeline for the original hunter-hunter series!" a voice I recognised came from behind me. Whipping out my pistol, I spun around, spotted my target, a grubby looking guy with sliked back black hair and sunglasses, and shot him in the forehead, blood shooting in all directions as he began to fall backwards. However, before he could hit the ground, time seemed to freeze, and flow backwards. He fell in reverse, the blood re entered the wound. The bullet emerged, then soared back into the pistol. Everything resumed.

"As I was saying, ho . . . " A bloodcudling scream echoed in the wake of a gunshot.

I'd shoot him between the legs.

* * *

"Man, why do you hate me so much?" the man asked, now having regenerated his unmentionables. He was sitting on the ground cross-legged, and was giving me a pouting expression.

"Oh, I don't know," I began, my voice already possessing a sarcastic tone to it. "maybe it was plucking me from the comforts of my bedroom and throwing me into a country were I _could not speak the language_? Or maybe, maybe it was the fact that Jappon happens to be I another world entirely? Oh I know, how about telling me than no matter what I do, I will meet _the_ _flipping ant king Meruem_ the second this DAMNED TIMER RUNS OUT, AND THAT IF I TRIED TO ESCAPE THAT FREAKING SCION WOULD SHOW UP AND START A CYCLE, YOU . . . " I will not write what I said from that point on, as I am ashamed of doing such a good impression of my father when hes drunk and pissed off . . .

After a full minute of ranting over being left in another world, trying to explain oneself to the authorities, and other various difficulties that I had had because of the . . . _'don't swear, don't swear don't swear . . . '_ I managed to calm down enough to take stalk of the situation. And start to do some deep breating to clear my head.

"Done yet?" The R.O.B. Sitting in front of me asked.

"For now." My words said, but my tone suggested that I meant something a bit more vulgar.

"well good. I've come here to give you a . . . bit of a free-be. You see, I'm not your average R.O.B. Looking for entertainment . . . "

 _'Cough'_ "bull" _'cough.'_

"I sent you here for a reason. But, have a condition. I can only help you five times. The first time was when I gave you gift of tongues . . . "

 _'Yeah, gave it to me after four days in Japponese custody, that was an awkward sesion with the police!'_

"The second was when I gave you the cash, and this is the third. Now, you see, all those small time gangs you pissed off back in, as you put it, "New Gotham", have banded together to buy a small horde of hit men, who will be waiting in the net city you go to. Now, I have here a file containing info on every one of them and their preferred assassination methods. There's fourteen of them in all."

He handed me a folder looking at it for a moment, I looked at the source of all my suffering. "Where did you get this?"

He smirked. "Stole it from the police!" He responded, before promptly dissolving into the air.

Looking over the folder, I snorted. "as if knowing their specialties is going to help." I threw the folder over my shoulder, hearing them flutter to the ground. If they're just small time hit-men, then I know every trick in the book.

* * *

January fifteenth: Russet

Senlen city was a rather large city, which had sprung into existence after the airship became a common travel method, because it was in an area where the air currents allowed for easy access to major trade centres. Because of this, it was also a popular spot for criminals to "Get lost" as there were so many people coming and going that it was child's-play to "accidentally" end up on the wrong ship, of for someone to "get lost in transit".

It was here that I had come soon after I received the message from the D.R.O.B(Damnable-random-omnipotent-being[Jeremiah Cross, eat your heart out]) as I felt that with all the violence that happens under the scenes around here, anything I did would hardly stand out.

The fact that I was attacked withing ten minutes of my getting of of the airship simply proves my point.

I was walking down a street in the middle of the city, when someone in the large crowd began to scream, clutching his eyes. Turning to look at the man, I prepared to go check on him, only for a knife to snake around my neck and scraping against the layer of interlocking fibreglass plates hidden under the turtle-neck I was wearing.

Grabbing the arm, i spun on my left heel, twisting his arm so that it was locked at his shoulder while still straight out from his body, then gave a harsh shove on his elbow, bending his arm the wrong way. I kicked him in the solar plexus then left as quickly as possible into the same alley he'd come out of.

Walking into the alley, I took ten steps, reached the corner, then ducked. There was a dull "Pop!" and something went over my head. Turning the corner, I stabbed my cane(which was in my right hand) into the gut of the man around the corner, before triggering the taser attachment. The man fell to the ground a twitching mess. Two down, twelve to go.

I continued out of the alley and unto the street. Going down a straight stretch, I noticed a camera in a corner of the wall of one shop. I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been searching . . .

As a large truck pulled around the corner, I noticed a flash of movement. Something had been thrown onto the side of the truck. As the truck grew closer, I realized that what I was looking at was a bomb. Pulling out the pistol, I shot out the tires, the truck screaming and coming to a stop ten feet in front of me. I pull my hood lower and run around the trucks other side as the driver screams at me. Getting around the corner, I saw a man running from me, a detonator in hand. A UN-activated grenade slams into the back of his head and he's sent sprawling.

Catching up, to him as he groans and rubs his head. I kick him in the head, before retrieving the grenade. ' _Got to be more careful with these, I only have a few left . . . '_

I turn to the side, looking down the alley the bomber had been heading for. Five men is suits with knives. They're making it to easy.

Three of them charged me at once, the last two seemingly going for guns. The first one to reach me made a thrust at me with his knives, but I grabbed his wrist. The second guy came at me from the left swinging, forcing me to step back, dragging guy one off balance, while guy three tried to find an opening between the first two.

After two seconds of dragging One around, I released him in such a way that he threw Two of balance, Three jogging to try and keep up. Two jumped over One, but I stepped forward into his space, grabbed his arm and kneed him in the solar plexus, before breaking his nose with a punch. By this point in time, four and five had pulled out pistols and were trying to get a shot off.

I threw two on top of one, reducing the mans efforts to get to his feet to naught, and backed around the corner back onto the open street in time to here sirens in the distance. The police will be here soon. Three used the current state of his allies to follow me, taking several swing at me as I backpedalled. I have to admit, he is rather good, every swing would hit a vital spot, but it's obvious he had little experience with people who can fight back.

When he took an especially risky swing, going right for my throat, I duck to the side and under his knife and punched him in the tendon right at the armpit, before grabbing him by the arm just beneath the elbow and turning to knee him in the solar plexus (which, if you hadn't figured out yet, is my favourite target.)

allowing him to fall to the ground, and finishing with a stomp to the back of his head, I walked back to the edge of the corner in time to kick one of the first two (One I think . . . yes, his nose isn't broken) and kicked him between the legs, looped my hands around his head(making note of the fact that his arm was now to my left and the only way he could stab me was if he switched to a reverse grip) and and pulled him face first into my for head, with a satisfying crack, before informing him that it was his turn to send Two onto the ground. It was at this point that Four and Five came around the corner, guns in had, and I pulled out the grenade, pulled out the pin, threw it, and fell to the ground as bullets flew over my head.

The explosion had several shouts come from the direction of the earlier truck accident, and I prepared for the cops arrival. Getting to my feet, I saw that the hit-men . . . weren't in the best condition, In fact I'm surprised any of them survived that . . .

Police rushed around the corner, guns trained on me. "You hands on your head!" one of them exclaimed. I obeyed. "What happened here!" another one demanded.

I raised an eyebrow, said "I pissed off the mafia, and fell to my knees (Thank the sixth sense!) as a bullet flew over my head. A speck on the horizon(skyscraper) vanished. "Damned sniper, going to have trouble with that one." I mutter, before beginning to walk off while the police were distracted, going back into the alley were the fight started.

"Hey!" I herd the police as I began to jump up a fire escape. They ran into the alley after me, but I was a rather fast climber and had made it to the roof already. Now, let's see if I can spot that sniper . . . a bullet ricocheted next to me, so I guess that I'm not out of his line of sight yet. I ran and jumped the gap between the buildings, glad for the thin alleys. If the bang is any sign, I'd say he's about half a kilometre away . . . meaning he's on one of the larger buildings to my right, in other words, it's going to be a pain to reach him.

Figuring I should probably retreat, I turn the opposite direction from the sniper, trusting my sixth sense, and try to get out of his line of fire for the time being.

* * *

January sixteenth: Russet

It had been twenty four hours since my fight with the first few hit-men. After getting away, I had found one of the cheapest hotels in the city(no bed bugs, but the blankest are all sown together, patchwork things). I was trying to get the hang of controlling my nen. I could maintain ten for as long as he was thinking of it, kind of like how you could breath to a musical pattern so long as you were thinking of it. But, even if my muscle memory is rather good(as show by how quickly I get to the point were I can play music by memory), I just can't maintain it without thinking about it.

It's somewhat annoying that I have mastered zetsu, but can't get the hang of ten. Seriously, I get the distinct impression that I used zetsu in my sleep last night . . . I blame Slen for that, he kept trying to wake me up at four in the morning after I extended my stay with, and I had to hide while I stept.

As I sat there, the radio began playing a rather familiar song. I think I heard it back on earth. That's not that surprising, it happens often enough. The first time I encountered it was . . .

* * *

January sixteenth/August fourth: Russet

He had made a mistake. Not a big mistake, or even a bad one, but it was one nonetheless. You see, after the shipping lanes had re-opened, allowing Russet to leave, he had decided to celebrate. Said celebration had caused him to decide on some whim, to go to a karaoke joint. His mistake was inviting Slen along as a thanks for all the drug -head had done for him.

But he hadn't seen this coming, and because of it, his stay with the drug head hadn't hinted at this at all. After over two hours off time at the joint, Russet had managed to convince Slen to go up and sing himself. That was the mistake.

Slen had chosen a song a familiar song. One that He remembered from earth. That was not the problem. It was a combination of the songs lyrics . . . and the utter conviction Slen sung them with.

 _Tried to stay sober, tried to stay clean_

 _Wake me when it's over, like a bad dream_

 _mama doesn't call, sister doesn't write_

 _bet you they would laugh if i called to say goodbye_

 _no ones gonna worry, notice when I'm gone,_

 _they wont know I'm missing_

 _til they pull be out the mystic_

The last time he had heard such . . . passion? Despair? In a song was listening to a funeral ballad. And that was haunting. One thing was for certain. There was no way russet would be able to leave Slen Lucien behind now.

 **AN: 11:31 June 4th, 2018. Hey, no new reviews yet, huh? Maybe I should do something to publicize . . . but what would I do? Do a comic on deviantart? I don't know if I'm a good enough artist for that . . . I'll have to think on it . . . and get e deviantart account.**

 **So what did you think of the chapter (Shameless review hunting if you couldn't tell)? I personally think that I could have done better, and it's too short for the time I put in. I guess I had a hard time writing this one. This chapter shows Russet fight a couple of thugs, as well as the minor incident that ultimately drove him to form a deeper relationship with our favourite gang member. Actually, Slens character development was planned listening to several songs, all of which will be displayed as I go through the flash-backs.**

 **Well, not much else to say, so goodnight!**


	10. Hit by Hit-man

**AN: 9:03 PM, June 5th, 2018. Nothing had changed in the last 21 hours so I'll just go strait to the chapter.**

* * *

January 6teenth: Russet

Well, I suppose that It's time that I go-out and try to finish off those hit-men. I have managed to maintain my ten without thought, at least for a few minutes, so I guess that's an improvement.

I get up and turn off the radio, before gathering my things. Looking at the clock, I see that it's almost two. Man it's been a long day. And I haven't even done anything yet! I open the door and leave the motel(no duh) and move towards the lower section of town, were the worst element gather. If the hit-men are anywhere, it will be down here.

I'm down to only a few minutes to reach. Thinking back to the news earlier, I remember that seven of the eight hit-men that I meet yesterday are either arrested, hospitalized, or dead. That leaves seven still active, one with taser burns. And unlike last time, I can't wait for them to find me, so I'll have to find them myself, of lure them out.

Now, as good as I've gotten at navigation underworld circles, I simply don't have the knowledge to find them in this city. I have no contacts, no informants, and no reputation. I'd make more progress sitting around a shady bar listening for info, I'm no Batman after-all.

That leaves drawing them out. Now, I have no doubt that they've already passed my picture around the city, so, simply showing my face in a relatively public are could very well lead them to me, but at the same time, that's to uncontrolled.

So what, pray tell, should I do? Should I just leave? By now the mafia's assassins should know that engaging me in CCC is a bad idea, Slen saw to that, I didn't even have to bother using leopard paw, and that's my favourite trick!

Thinking on different martial combos I could pull, my hands fell into a leopard-paw, a hand position from leopard kung-fu were one strikes with there second set of knuckles instead of the first for increased damage to the vitals. It's good for causing damage up close, were I'm at my best, and allows me to attack at unexpected angles. It's a shame I haven't gotten to use it in a while, but I guess I just haven't had to.

That is not to say I've had lessons in leopard kung-fu mind you, I simply appreciated the concept, maintaining a stable offence/defence and off balancing my opponent, and adapted it into my street fighting.

'Great, now I'm actually craving a fight!' I groan mentally, recognizing how the muscles in my arm are getting preemptively jittery. When I was young, I was quite the little brawler, I'd enjoyed nothing so much a a little fist fight. But that, parred with my raging short temper, drove my mother to home school me. Of course, I had gotten the temper under control around twelve(when my brains logic centre finished developing and I began to ask "what's the point?") but the primal love of conflice remained. Now that I've gotten into several fights, it's back to being hard to restrain.

I sighed out-loud. I should really get my thoughts under control, that could be hindering my nen development . . .

where was I? Oh yes, now the H-M knows they shouldn't get to close, so they will probably know that middle and long range combat is the best option. I should stay on the move and avoid visiting the same place twice, or prearranged meetings, so as to avoid bombs. I should also stick to areas where they cant get a clear shot as easily . . . I'm in the middle of a wide street right in the open, arn't I?

I walked down the street to the left, heading to one of the shadier parts of town, which I only new because of a combination of online reviews and street maps (never underestimate research!) and turned into one of the earlier opening bars(well, bar and grill, I want Bar-BQ). Mite as well just wing it. Who know, maybe one of them came in here, got drunk, and started blabbing.

I walked up to the bartender and threw down my hood. He looked at me, but his expression didn't change. _'Either he doesn't know me, or he has a good poker face. Hopefully this means that no-one has come here looking for me yet.'_ I think as i sit down in one of the bar chairs.

"Welcome the Greg's south-side bar n grill, what yah havin." the bartender asks.

Looking over the menu for a minute, I make my order. "I'll have the honey glaze ribs, and one Mug root beer."

The bar tender nods silently, before turning around and beginning to work. That's another reason I came here. The bar tender is also the chef, and the chef works in plain view of everyone here, the grill's right behind the counter. It also means that he can't just slip something into my food . . . hey, it's only paranoia is there isn't anyone out to get you!

As steam rose from the grill, I caught brief flashes of the smell of meat cooking, before my noses curse kicked in and my sense of smell vanished. _'I swear, at this rate I'll appreciate the smell of garbage simply for the fact that I could smell it . . . '_ I think, ;puffing out my left cheek, my eyes never leaving the cooks hands as he masterfully prepares the ribs. Honestly, just watching this is worth the wait.

As I wait, I begin to check my weapons. Cane, with blade and taser attachment? Check. Extra small pistol? Check. Knife in boot? Check. Switchblade in pocket next to watch? Check. Shame I cant bring my vine out of the backpack, but it's to . . . inconspicuous? I think that's the word. Either way, I'm nearly armed to the teeth. But will that be enough? I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Now, how to draw them out? I have no idea were any of them are, and no idea how the will attack me. For all I know, one of them is aiming a rocket launcher at me right now. That is not to say I regret throwing out the files, but not knowing there specialties just makes it harder to find them. Should I just wing-it? I suppose.

At this point, my ribs were almost done, so I stopped thinking for the time being. I can decide what to do after I eat my ribs.

* * *

Six hour. Six hours since I ate, and I'm still no closer to finding any of the hit-men than when I started. It's annoying, hunting for someone who's hunting you, wondering whose going to find who first, like a game of tennis were neither side can hit the ball. Now I'm just wandering criss-cross across town trying to find something. And I don't like it when I can't find what I want.

Toss in the fact that my urge to fight has hardly lessened in the passed few minutes and you have a recipe for a very ticked off teenager.

I sighed. Maybe I should just leave the . . . city . . . that's it! If I make it look like I'm going to leave, they'll try to kill me in the airport! I quickly brought up a map of the air port. _'OK, what do I know? One of them is a sniper. Now, taking into account the hills around the city, and the airports position . . . yes there is only three different skyscrapers that you could snipe the airport from, assuming that I enter from the east entrance and take whatever ship is in the third area!'_ Meaning, if I make it look like I'm heading for that ship, There will only be three places for him to shoot me from. And from the looks of things, I will be able to watch two of them, from the one furthest back.

Now having a strategy, I pulled out my smart phone, a resent advancement, and bought a seat online using my real(for this world) name and picture, for seven AM tomorrow. Now I've set the bait, lets see what I catch.

* * *

To easy. I had slept in a janitors closet in one of the tree building, waking up early to ensure I had the optimal chance of catching my target-er of guard. And sure enough, someone came and began setting up a rifle on the building next to me at dawn. After seeing that, I had left my building and headed towards his.

I would like to say that it was anticlimactic, but that would be an understatement. In the end, I had come up the stairs, walked up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, waited for him to stand up it surprise, and shoved him over the edge. See, anticlimactic in the extreme.

Now lets see if anyone else took the bait . . .

I spent the net few hours sitting in an area where I could clearly see anyone watching the rest of the waiting room. When you have an area where you target has to be, it's much easier to wait for them. By six thirty, there were two potential hit men sitting in the room. People who were tense, always watching ect. Since I had used my name and appearance during the sign in, they wouldn't be looking for someone in a disguise, so the powder I used to change my skin colour, and the fake beard(well, goatee) I'm wearing should be enough to throw them off as long as I stay away from the line.

Of course, that hasn't helped me in confirming who the hitmen are. Oh well, I signed up for a challenge at the start when I refused to use those documents. Well. Nothing to do but take a chance. I walked forward, practically strutting, and glanced in the direction of my suspects. I met both of their eyes, then smirked pointedly. I began walking away, noting how they were now following me. Good.

The next problem was finding a good place to fight them. There weren't many places one could try and commit murder in an airport, so getting them to attack me would be rather difficult, and I couldn't know that they were the right men until after they came after me. For all I know they could be loan sharks! That was a rather random example . . .

We reached a long, open hallway after a few minutes, one that had minimal security cameras. There was a twenty foot gap were the cameras didn't cover right in the middle, in fact. This, made it more or less the perfect place for a confrontation.

I turned around and faced the two men. Both were wearing rather casual clothes, had black hair, and wore serious expressions. There clothes of one was baggy enough to hide a weapon or two, but ones were next to skin tight, showing off his muscles. The one with his muscles showing was probably a CCC specialist. I could expect either grapples of whipping blows to vital areas. The baggy one would probably pull a gun on me.

I, with a bit of a flourish, pulled off the fake beard and gave them a slight smirk. "You wouldn't happen to be looking for me, would you?" I said with a teasing tone, my grip on my cane tightening.

They both tensed, the one with the baggy clothes, slowly reaching into his clothes. This was most likely an attempt to pull out a weapon.

Showing surprising coordination, the man in tight clothes(who from this point forward will be called fist) lunged forward, going for a right strait to the head. I ducked to my right, instinct telling me to look at the baggy man(who from this point forward will be called taz), who had pulled out what appeared to be a taser gun. So that's there plan.

The man went the fire his gun, but before he had even lined up the shot, I flicked my wrist, pointing my cane (Always assume I'm carrying it) at him. The canes extended to over eight feet, and the same blade I used against the whip woman coming out. The result was a blade slamming right into his wrist, causing him to drop the gun. I was forced to focus back on Fist as he came around with a hook at my face, ducking under it, and rolling to my left, collapsing my cane in the process. The whole exchange happened in less than three seconds.

Coming back to my feet from my rolling, I took a swing at Fist's neck, which caused him to back away, before I charged at him. He took a defensive stance in the second it took me to build up momentum, but to his surprise, I fell to one knee, shoved of the ground with the other leg, and slid by him, before coming back to my feet right in front of Taz, who took an overhead swing of the blade to the spot were the shoulder meets the neck before he could react properly.

Ignoring the mans screams, as well as how alarms were now sounding, I dropped my cane and stepped back into Fists chest as he came to hit me in the back of the head. I threw my head back, slamming him in the jaw, staggering him, before darting forward and kicking the still shocked Taz between the legs, grabbed him by the head and dragged his face down into be rising knee, that seemingly being enough to knock him out.

Seeing this, Fist paused, looked conflicted, then ran away. "Hey, you!" Oh look, security. Time to leave.

* * *

I'll save you the run/chase scene, and simply tell you that it is time for trap two. I had returned to the same cheep hotel as before, and intentional chosen the room furthest away from anyone else. What was I hoping for? And arson specialist, that's what. If all goes well, they should be by to light the room on fire. If not . . . well there are a lot of reasons, so I won't bore you.

Either way, around three, I felt the area begin to get hotter, and small amounts of smoke began to come under the door. I shoot out of bed, were I had been practising ten and pretending to sleep, as the fire alarm began to blare, threw on my glasses, and shot to the door, pretending to panic. If I'm lucky, the guy is either still here, or the cameras I hid in the hall caught him. I open the doo . . .

 _'bang!'_

 _'What? What was that? Why does my head hurt? Wha . . . I activated ten on instinct. Why? What?'_ I was standing with the door open, my head forced back by a sudden blow. The middle of my forehead hurt. I reached up an placed my hand over it. There was something sticking out of my forehead. I pulled it out. I looked at it. It was a cylinder of brass, with tapered end, which had blood on it. A bullet. A bullet had buried itself a centimetre into my head.

I looked right in front of me. The man with the pistol looked as shocked as me. Taking a moment to take it in, I came back the my senses as the mast expression shifted from shock to panic and leopard-pawed him right in the throat as he tried to shift a new bullet into the guns chamber. "Get an automatic, dumbass!" I screamed, the stress and Adrenalin from the near death experience making me more irrational.

 _'I was just lucky that the guy had apparently removed some powder from the bullet. If hadn't tried to make the bang quieter, I would be dead! Honestly! I keep telling myself not to get cocky, and what do I do!?'_. I rant mentally as I dash down the hall. Enough cat and mouse. I'm leaving the city before I make any more mistakes like this. I must have been having a power high from having my nen unlocked, I've been acting like an overconfident fool since I got back from the exam!

I ran out the front door, heading downtown. I had left my things hidden in a public locker, just so they wouldn't be damaged if a fire got out of control. Look how that turned out, the guy used a heater and a flipping smoke machine, and I nearly got killed because of it!

I slowed in my running, I needed to calm down, the fact that there was blood dripping down into my eyes doesn't help either. I begin wiping my forehead, noting the blood on the back of my wrist. It hurts. Not the worst pain, but it will be a little hard to focus. I need to find a way out of the city that the hit-men can't track . . . maybe I should just stow away under a bus? I mean the buses around here ride rather low to the ground . . .

I reached the public lockers, pulling out a key. Opening to locker, I removed my bag. Retrieving my first aid kit, I bandaged my forehead, the end result looking more like a headband than anything else, before throwing on a red hoodie over the turtle-neck I was currently wearing. Walking down the street, I paused. Next to one of the restaurants, this one open 24-7 to cater to truck drivers. The parking lot had six semi trucks in it. I wonder if I can get away with hiding in the back of one of those?

 **AN: 11:21 PM June 8th, 2018. Not a lot of plot progression in this chapter, huh? I guess that's what made it hard to write. No new review either, so I guess I'll just promise more plot progression in the next chapter and leave it at that.**


	11. Me, Myself, and I

**AN: 12:17 AM, June 9th, 2018. I have been watching the seven deadly sins . . . I am now fighting the urge to write a seven deadly sins/fate crossover . . . I already have plans for this story though, so I'll stick to it. Maybe if I get my cousin in on this I'll have more motivation . . . well anyway, It's only been like, and hour since I updated so of course there are no reviews, and even if there were I'd leave that to the end of the chapter.**

* * *

January 25th: Russet

It had been several days since the hit-man incident, and I will admit, I am severely embarrassed about how I acted during the whole affair. But hind site it twenty/twenty, and I have to focus on the future, and do my best to avoid getting such an extreme power high.

I am currently heading to a place I can lie low for a wile . . . hopefully, at least. The place in question is the same as my original destination when I arrived in this world, Evarone. The landscape and political climate of said nation mirrored that of Canada in the . . . I need the stop referring to earth as the real world . . .

Anyway, it being the equivalent of my homeland(and I am a proud nationalist!) was not the sole reason for my drive to go there. No. The reason for that lays in my first few days in this world. I'd rather not discuss the time I spent in the custody of Japppons police, its ultimately a long, drawn out list of headaches that is irredeemably boring, but during my time with them, they tried to find out who I was by using DNA testing.

I never expected them to find anything. I said as much to them(although I had to use a dictionary at the time, as that damned R.O.B. Hadn't given me gift of tongues yet) but to my shock, they found a "likely" relation. A family in Evarone that I had a near 100% match with, the Charson family. Telling them that I had never herd of them had "Stolen at birth" theory's thrown about the rumour mil. The fact that the picture of one of them showed an eerie resemblance to myself didn't help.

After I had gotten out through a convoluted series happenstance, I had looked deeper into the family, and found that there history had some shocking similarities to my own family. I won't go into detail for most of it, but the similarities between "Adrian Clay Charson" and myself were both apparent. Toss in the fact that, looking at images of him(which I admittedly needed Slen's underground contacts help to get) from when he was younger, I found that we could have passed as twins until around age 12.

But not now. I was looking at a picture of him that was take more recently. It was rather shocking, actually. Were once Adrian had my brown hair and eyes, he now had white hair and colourless eyes that looked almost blind. His skin was now pail, and flawlessly smooth, all moles and dimples, which were things we also had shared, were also gone.

It was a radical transformation that started when he was fourteen, and completed when he was sixteen. Since then, he had apparently disappeared dozens of times, only to return later with a strange object, such as a weapon, jewel, of statue, in his possession. The only thing any of them seemed to have in common was the fact that they were all visually appealing to me. That lead me to believe that that may be his sole reason for gathering them. When I was younger, I obsessively collected things like decorative rocks and such, so it wasn't so far fetched.

I am now heading towards the small town were this family lives, both to hide, and to satisfy my curiosity. I was currently stowing away on a train. I would normally have felt bad for, technically stealing a ride, but after spending a few months living with a gangster, my moral compass took a couple of blows. So as long as I'm not hurting someone, I'm fine. Besides, I'm sitting in a pile of coal on a cargo train, so I feel I should get some bonus points for taking seventh class.

Of course, then came the problem of getting off. While _ten_ made me much more durable, I didn't want to trust it against the damage from jumping off a train moving sixty miles an hour. I would probably end up passing the town and having to get off at the train station and work my way back. That will be a real pain in the . . . is that my house? That's my house. Hell, that's my home street! Looking at the house, noting the slight differences, I leaned forward, overbalanced, and fell of the train.

* * *

I groaned. OK, I should have knocked on wood or something, because telling myself I wasn't going to test my _ten_ like that and then crashing into the ground? That's not coincidence. _That_ , is someone messing with me. I rubbed the back of my head, glad that my thick clothes protected me from the thick layer of gravel on the ground. I had a headache and a few scrapes as it is, I don't want to know what I would have ended up looking like if I hadn't. Good thing I finally got to using it subconsciously . . .

"Well well well, either someone has been cloning me behind my back, or I just found my doppelganger." A voice that sounded suspiciously like my own sounded out behind me, causing me to pause. I forced myself to my feet, as shaky as my stance was, and turned around.

It was Adrian. The same person that had drawn me to come here. Looking at him the first thing I noticed was his ten. The sign of his nen was easily seen, but there was something off about it compared to me, or the way that _ten_ was depicted in the show. Instead of flowing, his ten seemed to gloss over him, like a plastic bubble, never moving.

The next thing I noticed was something that pictures of him simply didn't do justice. His hair. The way it moved reminded me of one of those hair commercials, and I got the same kind of feeling looking at it that I got when looking at especially soft animal fur. His skin looked polished, and his eyes had an odd effect I just can't describe.

Noticing my looks, Adrian snorted. "Admiring the visage of near perfection? You to could look this good, with only a few treatments from my _nen_." he spoke like he was trying to sell me something, an amused look on his face.

I inhaled, then exhaled, pushing the air out primarily through my right cheek. "Ok, this is weird, like, looking in a mirror, only the colours are, inverted, I guess? I don't know how to describe it. But I do have an explanation that I think might be the answer." I answered, admittedly still a little out of it from recent events.

My colour bleached counterpart snorted several times, something I did whenever I was amused in place of a chuckle, and offered me his hand. "Well then, why don't we sort it out?" he then turned and stared into the distance. "Next time on "It's my life" we will be disusing the differences between Adrian and his mysterious doppelganger!"

Acting like he's on a TV show? Ok, now I know for sure he's me.

* * *

After that little episode(does that turn into a joke considering circumstances?) Adrian had more or less dragged me into his "Home base" which was more or less a security bunker hidden in his back yard.

Looking around said bunker, it looked like the kind of thing that you would expect from a rich collector. Weapons of all shapes, sizes, and porposes adorned the walls, jewels in display cases, paintings on the walls, statues on pedistals, the whole nine yards.

Somehow, I got the feeling there was an even more impressive security system hidden just under the surface.

 _'clink'_ an teapot was placed in front of me on the place holder, so as to protect the overly fancy mahogany table that we were seated at.

"So," my counterpart began. "Let's start with something basic. How much do you know about _nen_?" he had a casual smile on.

I blinked twice and stared for a minute before responding. "I know about aura, _nen_ , _ten_ , and _zetsu_ , I forget the name of the next ability, and hatsu, as well as the six types. I also know how a lot of the advanced techniques work but . . ."

"You can't remember the names?" my doppelganger seemed both a familiar and amused at the same time.

" . . . yes, I guess I'm not the only one finding parallels between us?" I asked.

"Maybe you are. Or, maybe, I'm just really good at reading people." he smiled. "But anyway, the reason that I asked you about _nen,_ is so I could do this." a piece of paper appeared in his hands. "I have a nasty tendency to lie, and I don't like being lied to, so I made this. It's basically just a contract that says that we can't lie to each other for a day, or well loose the ability to speak for a day. How does that sound to you?" he smiled causally as he lounged in his chair.

I looked at the the paper for a minute. "So basically, if I sign this contract, You'll believe anything I tell you?" I asked.

"Yes." His response was acompanied by a smirk.

I looked over the contract again.

 _Whomsoever shall sign this contract agrees to the following terms._

 _He/She/It shall not tell A lie to, or in the presence of, another signer of this contract._

 _He/She/It will not in any way, shape, or form attempt to deceive or mislead another signer of this contract with lies, half truths, or true but unrelated information._

 _Anyone who sign's this contract may maintain the right to hold silence, or try change the subject of discussion._

 _Any attempt to break this contract will result in the sealing of the voice of the beaker for the remaining hours of the day._

 _This contract is rendered void at the strike of midnight of the day it is signed._

 _This contract will not be seen as legitimate until all parties have signed._

 _Should these conditions be acceptable, please sign on the line._

 _Name. __

Looking it over one last time I considered the possible conditions. Seeing to loopholes, I resigned. "Hand me a pen." I said, my haste making it come out as a demand. Not that he seemed to mind, as he handed me the pen.

I signed my full original name in cursive, noting with some aggravation that it was sloppy from how long it had been since I wrote by hand. By comparison, when Adrian signed the paper, it looked completely smooth and flawless.

As soon as Adrian finished signing, the paper glowed for a moment, burst into flame, then turned into ashes that seemed to hover in the air. After they had hovered for a few seconds, they suddenly flew into our faces, and seemed to force themselves down our noses. It was an extremely odd sensation.

After I finished coughing, I gave him the stink eye. "Could of warned me!"

He laughed, or, well, snorted. "Well, were would be the fun in that? But anyway, you were about to explain why you have my face."

It was my turn to smile. "Well, to start, I came from another world entirely and was thrown here by some sort of multidimensional being that apparently wanted me to entertain it, rather predictably if I might add, not that that makes it any less annoying mind you . . . "

* * *

"So, recap. Your from another dimension. In this dimension, people don't have powers, have a map of the entire world, and are beginning space exploration. This world, the world were in right now, bares several similarities to it however, to the point that it has the same religions and religious history's. Because of these similarities, you believe me to be your counterpart in this dimension. I got all that?"

"Yes."

"Also, this world is a comic book in your world, which is how you know about _nen_. And the Bastard R.O.B. has set you on a timer that until you meet the "final boss of the game", so to speak, driving you to try and "grind" as much as possible, right?"

I nodded again, glad that video game terminology hasn't changed that much.

"So now, you've come here, to both find a quiet place to train, and avoid a group of hitmen that was sent after you by a Mafia you pissed of early into said grinding. Which brings us to now."

I nodded a third time.

"You know, I really should be skeptical, the contract doesn't really have an answer to "altered memory" scenarios, but after having my arm cut off by a wind blade then reattached by a set of martial arts nuts in the park when I was thirteen, I don't think I've had it in me to doubt strange scenarios. You believe that, it's your problem. Now, what are you going to do now?"

I shrugged.

"Ok, now I _know_ your me." yes, we both prefer non verbal responses to simple questions.

I smile. "Well, I already know most of the basics for _nen_ , the things that you have to learn yourself, so I won't need any help for some time yet. But I suppose that I could use some advice on good places to train around here?" I asked.

He "hmm"ed for a few seconds, hand on his chin, making a big show of it. "Well, there aren't really too many good places to do training around here, but if your willing to go to the nearby campgrounds, there are a some cliffs and thick trees that are good for acrobatics training, a lot of debris falls of the waterfalls, so it's great for samurai style awareness training." he made samurai sword motions. "If you really want some good strength training, you'd be better off going to the gym, they have weights all the way up to three tons."

"No, I don't need any weights, my friend gave me this armour. It's hollow, so you can fill it with heavy stuff, meaning that as long as you can get your hands on some heavy material, that's fine."

"Oh, any preferences on filler then?"

" . . . Got any metals with low melting temperatures?"

* * *

 **AN: 9:32 PM, August 9th, 2018. OK, finally finished this. Great. Now I just have to keep at it. In response to the reviews I have recieved.**

 **Link: I had to use google translate to find out what you said, but your welcome!**

 **opalfeather: Ok! Ok! Here's another chapter! Yeash! Can't a guy get a break around here?**

 **Well, until next time!**


	12. The Daily Grind

**AN: 11:35 PM, August 9th, 2018. Ok, lets do this! Next chapter! . . .**

* * *

February 5th: Adrian

Adrian Clay Charson had been through a lot in his short life. He was the kind of person that was always searching for his next source of entertainment, weather simply admiring a piece of art, to getting into a fight with an especially difficult opponent.

Thus, when the improbable happened, he was more likely to begin thinking of a way to shift the situation into a source of entertainment than worrying over the ridiculousness of it all.

Case in point, standing one the back of his otherworldly counterpart as said counterpart did push ups is a hollow suit currently filled with liquid gallium.

"Eighty eight! Eighty nine! Come on! Just eleven more! Ninety! Come on!" he cheered on the Burnett.

Russet meanwhile, seemed to be annoyed. "I know _'pant'_ that _'pant'_ I should be used this _'pant'_ after Slen's _'pant'_ slave driving _'pant'_ but could _'pant'_ you please let me ease into this weight?!" Heavy breathing followed this question.

"Who's Slen?"

 _'pant'_ "To soon."

"What?"

 _'pant'_ "Don't want to talk about it."

"Oh. Ok, your done."

"What?"

"One hundred two. One hundred three . . . "

Russet, realizing what he meant, stopped his push ups and fell to the floor, panting. "You know _'pant'_ it would be easier if you let me do this outside!"

"Yes, but then I'd have to explain who you are to my family, and I don't like awkward conversations. So, stay in the bunker until I can think of an excuse. They have a hard enough time believing the whole nen thing . . . "

"Yes, yes, I get it. Still annoying though."

" . . . neither of us can help speaking our mind either, huh?" he made a huffing noise in the back of his throat, signifying extremely minor amusement. "The longer I know you the less I doubt the whole dimensional counterpart thing."

Russet made the huff noise himself, before hauling himself back to his feet. "Yeah, well, you'd best get over it, because your identity crisis is not my problem."

Adrian gave Russet his best deadpan. "Do I really sound like that?"

Russet deadpanned back. "No. Your voice is far more melodious."

"That's not what I meant and you know it!"

"Of course I do, but we have the same sense of humour, are you saying you didn't see it coming?"

Ardian crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. In the end, him and Russet had a downright ridiculous amount in common. Of course, that is not to say they were identical. Over the past few days, they had discussed their lives and found that they were practically the same until the early teen phase.

During their teens, major changes happened to both of them. Russet got his first access to the internet, which was more advanced in his world due to public satellite access, and became obsessed with internet games, and spent all his spare time either playing computer or reading fantasy novels, and eventually discovered "anime".

By comparison, Adrian, thanks to the greater strength of this worlds humans, was allowed to wander free more, to the point were he could go to the town park of his own in spite of his mothers (over)protective nature, which lead to him encountering a group of nen users and an accident that caused him to awaken his own.

Most of their development from their differed, leaving Russet a far lazier, but more wise and philosophical, person than Adrian. While Adrian could honestly say he had Russet beat when it came to "book smarts", being better at both math and science, Russet was better at understanding human thought than him (which was ironic seeing as he interacted with people far less than Adrian) and thus, could better form arguments, given time.

Russet, now on his feet, began taking off his weight-suit, which even Adrian was excessively heavy for someone on russet's level, and prepared to stretch. "hey, you sure that this will work? I mean sure, it is getting results already, but back home I researched training, and it always said that weight training wasn't actually that great for fights. You know, speed times mass equals force and all that?"

"So you want to do laps instread?"

Yet another deadpan from Russet. "You know what I mean!"

* * *

February 9th: Russet

Adrian's bunker was deep. Very deep. I actually wondered were he put all the dirt for it, cause I don't seen any new hills in the immediate area. Did he use _nen_? The shear volume of open area is shocking, it'd be hard to realize your underground if it wasn't for the tack of windows. Honestly, he has everything from a display room to a swimming pool! Some of the rooms are plain out massive. And the largest, and most open of the area's down here, has to be the collosueam.

No, that's not spelt wrong . . . well, it is, apparently he let his sister make the sign for the room and she misspelt it on propose, it was obviously supposed to be Colosseum.

The room is a large, perfect circle about 200 feet in diameter. The floor and ceiling are both perfectly flat to the very edges, and the walls are at a perfect 90 degree angle. The distance from floor to ceiling is about twenty feet. The whole place was made out of this white, waxy plaster stuff, which has very good traction and Adrian can apparently repair easily with _nen_ , and it is lit by roughly 63 lights set into the walls at even spacing, and one big light in the very centre.

It was in this chamber that we trained . . . if you can call it that. More like played a very one side game of ping pong. I was, of course, the _ball_.

'Thwack!' the sound of flash colliding with flesh echoed around the underground arena. I pulled back my arm into a defensive position as I stared down Adrian, who hadn't moved since blocking my punch, a stoic look on his face.

With a motion that seemed to be the epitome of casual attacks in spite of its speed, he blurred into motion, and struck the air were I had been just seconds before. With a sudden shift of his hips, he spun a whole circle and launched a kick at me, forcing me to cross my arms and block. Upon collision, I was sent flying backwards, bounced of the ground twice, and slammed into the wall.

I coughed twice, then crawled back to my feet, cradling the arm that had taken the blow. "You know, broken bones don't grow back much stronger. Not enough to justify breaking them as often as you do." I ground out, already used to the pain from the past few days.

"First of all, it's not broken yet, second of all, it's good practice for my enhancement! I'm still only at forty five to fifty percent efficiency for healing, even though its one of my secondary category's!" He responded, before rushing towards me again.

I managed to take a defensive stance right before he reached me, crouched down, my arms held in defence of my face like a boxer. Just in time as a punch slammed into my right arm, sending me skidding back into the wall again.

This it how my "fight" with Adrian usually go. Sloppy. I can't land a single punch, and am forced to rush him haphazardly simply to close the distance, meaning that I haven't even actually gotten a chance to improve my hand to hand. In other words, it's all reaction speed and durability training. Honestly, if he didn't use enhancement to heal my injuries at the end of each session then I swear I wouldn't be able to move afterwards.

He has helped me improve my _nen_ control, I can now perform _ren_ for roughly five minutes as long as I don't move to much(although my control is shaky). Of course, he won't let me use _nen_ in combat, at all, he makes me use _zetsu_ , and says that I should "work on my base". Not that I can't see his point, _nen_ is a force _enhancer_ , in needs force to enhance in the first place. Enhanced steel is better than enhanced iron and all that.

A blurring motion, and I was on my back, my legs kicked out from under me, and I was forced to role to avoid an incoming axe kick. _'Note to self: don't think about random stuff while fighting.'_

"You know," Adrian spoke during pause as I got back on my feet, "whoever taught you to fight, while they did do a rather good job, they left a rather glaring flaw."

"Oh really?" I responded, eyes narrowed. Talking was the cardinal sin of combat, so if he was speaking he obviously wasn't taking me seriously . . . of course, I doubt I could hurt him if he stood still and let me hit him with a sledge hammer, so I suppose that's to be expected.

"Yes, you lack defence from attacks the come from a lower angle. You'd do fine against a boxer, but a kick-boxer? Not so much. Also, beware of" he stepped back to avoid a sudden uppercut on my part, "shorter opponents." he kicked me in the ribs, sending me flying head over heels into the wall yet again. Why do I feel like the ball in a game of squash?

I got up, and charged him again, slammed one foot into the ground at an angle, and rotated my way around him, coming up behind him with a kick aimed at his own ribs. He seemed surprised for a brief moment, I learned that trick from him, and haven't used it until now, so I guess he was caught off guard by the change in tactics.

Not that that changed anything. He blurred into a handstand and gave me an anti-manner kick course. I flew into the ceiling this time. On my return to the ground, I struggled to my feet, feeling like I had been hit by a truck. Actually, all things considered, Adrian may be able to hit that hard . . .

"Ok, that's enough for today." From were I lay on the ground, I could see as Adrian walked up to one of the walls, placed his hand on it, and with a slight flare of his aura, it opened. darn _nen_ door . . .

With a little struggle, I rose to my feet, using the wall as a brace. "Hey." Adrian said from the door, causing me to look up at him. "We we start on weapons tomorrow." he walked down the short hall to the stairs.

I sighed. On one hand, I was better at armed combat then unarmed, but on the other hand, I don't think that will make much difference. But still, might as well give it my all . . . I haven't watered my vine in a week!

* * *

February 10th: Russet

I looked at the sword I was holding. I traced its outline with my finger, the blade long and thin, the edges razor sharp, meant for skin and cloth rather than armour. The whole thing, counting the handle, was about three feet three inched long. The handle had no decoration, being a simple black leather coated cylinder, with a ring of metal at the top and bottom. The only decoration over the entire thing was on the cap at the bottom substitution a pommel, an simple image of seven rings, six surrounding a seventh.

The whole thing was designed to fit in a cane, and I'll admit it has become my favourite weapon. The only reason I didn't bring it along for the hunters exam, is because I feared that it would be damaged. It was only recently that I noticed the _nen_ infused into the blade. I do remember that Slen said that he made it himself, so I suppose that was his doing. Of course, I didn't bring it along for the hunter exam, I was scared I'd loose it along the way, I left it with my other stuff, under the rock.

I stared into the blade, the hamon visible along the blade edge. I sheathed the blade in it's cane-sheath, and placed it back into the cupboard Adrian gave me for storing my things.

I,of course couldn't use the sword for sparing, it could get damaged. Quite frankly, I'll only use that blade for life and death scenarios. Walking over to the door, an rather fancy redwood thing with carvings of flowers and wildlife, I turned the knob and walked out into the hall. I took a left turn, followed by a right, then another left as I came up to the weapons room, where Adrian stored all his training weapons.

Entering, I gazed along a hundred foot long chamber with seemingly every available inch covered in some form of weapon. Of course, to my own annoyance, the weapons were alphabetized, so I would have to go to the very end to find a training sword.

* * *

 **AN: 10:05 PM August 18th, 2018. Ok, so this is finally done, took nine days, but I finished. Next chapter will be better, I hope. This chapter's name more or less describes the way it was to write. I don't really know what else to say. Well, other than thank LordOfTee for the constructive criticism. I'll probably read my past chapters and edit them soon.**

 **Well, until next time.**


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